by John Carter
The next word in Parsons’ title, Al-Dajjal, is the Islamic version of the Antichrist, whose name is Arabic for “the deceiver.” He does not appear in the Koran but rather in the hadith, which are the sayings of Mohammed as recorded by his disciples. Al-Dajjal is blind in one eye but is able to perform miracles, the greatest of which will be bringing order to a world in chaos. On Judgment Day he will be defeated by the Mahdi, whom most Muslims believe is the return of Mohammed.
The beastly-named Parsons then took the Oath of the Abyss. “Crossing the Abyss” involves the total denial of the world and detachment from the ego. The oath has survived along with some of Parsons’ other papers from this period and begins as follows:
I, who am called John Whiteside Parsons in the outer, and Fra. 210 in the inner, do hereby in the presence of Fra. 132 [Wilfred Smith], take this oath of a Magister Templi [Master of the Temple], which for me is the Oath of Antichrist. And I swear that my name is BELARION ARMILUSS AL DAJJAL, ANTICHRIST who am come to fulfil the law of the Beast 666 [Crowley].
And I hereby accept all things needful for the fulfillment of my will, and do swear to persevere in this my chosen work unto the end.
Parsons’ personalization was followed by the Oath of the Abyss or “Great Obligation” that Aleister Crowley took and that is contained in his 1908 diary “John St. John” in The Equinox vol. I, number 2 special supplement:
Then did I take upon myself the Great Obligation as follows:
I. I, O.M. & c., a member of the Body of God, hereby bind myself on behalf of the whole Universe, even as we are now physically bound unto the cross of suffering:
II. that I will lead a pure life, as a devoted servant of the Order:
III. that I will understand all things:
IV. that I will love all things:
V. that I will perform all things and endure all things:
VI. that I will continue in the Knowledge and Conversation of My Holy Guardian Angel:
VII. that I will work without attachment:
VIII. that I will work in truth:
IX. that I will rely only upon myself:
X. that I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.
As a part of this venture, Parsons prepared two important papers: Analysis By A Master of the Temple, which is autobiographical in nature, and The Book of AntiChrist. Analysis seems to have been prepared prior to Parsons’ attempt to cross the Abyss, as “Frater Belarion” speaks to Parsons in the third person, saying “I await you in the City of the Pyramids.”
Subsequently writing as Belarion, Parsons refers to the OTO as “an excellent training school for adepts, but hardly an appropriate Order for the manifestation of Thelema,” a statement tantamount to heresy. Obviously, he was frustrated by attempts to discipline him, and his notion of Thelema was almost fundamentalist, based on little more than Liber OZ. Trying to make lemonade out of lemons, he writes in the third person, “The experience with the OTO and Aerojet were needed to dispel your romanticism, self deception, and reliance on others. Betty was one link in the process designed to tear you away from the now unneeded Oedipus complex, the overvaluation of women and romantic love.”
Evidently on account of such failures, Parsons listed seven things to begin working on immediately:
Works of the Wand—of the Will alone avail in this state. No other weapons should be used, no other ritual save the hymn to the Unnamed One in the Anthem of the [Gnostic] Mass.
You should be meticulous in all observations pertaining to the Will, even the most petty. Fulfill all obligations and promises, undertake nothing which you cannot fulfill, be prompt in the discharge of each responsibility.
Be neat in personal and domestic habits; indicate your self respect to yourself.
Do not become unduly involved with any person, and practice all your hard-earned wisdom in your relations with women.
Set up your personal affairs in business order. Keep your accounts current and your papers neatly filed.
Finish your poetry for publication. Finish the synthesis of the Tarot and start work on the preparation of the lessons of class instruction from your book.
Pay no attention to any phenomena whatsoever, and continue in a sober and responsible way of life under all circumstances.
Originally in Crowley's play The Ship, which he wrote shortly after learning the Key of the OTO, “The Hymn to the Unnamed One” is recited during the Gnostic Mass, where it is referred to as the “Anthem.” Written to portray the essence of that Key in dramatic form, the hymn invokes the “centre and secret of the Sun/And that most holy mystery/Of which vehicle am I.”30
After taking the oath, which he and Smith both signed, Parsons endured an unspecified 40-day ordeal—longer than the entire Babalon Working—that probably involved a retreat of some sort and fasting. He emerged to claim the grade of a Master of the Temple. Parsons was 33 when he took the Oath of the Abyss; Crowley was 34 when he attempted the same. Little survives of Parsons’ account; all we have is his statement in The Book of AntiChrist. Parsons should have kept detailed records of his attempt at crossing the Abyss, but if such records existed they must have been lost or destroyed. It is doubtful he succeeded in his attempt.
In order to try to reconstruct what Parsons might have done to cross the Abyss, we need to review what Crowley himself did in this regard. It may not be the same procedure as that attempted by Parsons, but it was in print at that time as The Vision and the Voice, and Parsons did in fact idolize Crowley, such that he probably stuck to the original, at least to some degree. It is important to note that crossing the Abyss is a part of the A∴A∴'s doctrine, and has nothing to do with the OTO. In fact, by this time Parsons had resigned from the latter.
Crowley carried out his Abyss-crossing process during 1908 and 1909. A key part of this working was a 30-day walk across the Algerian desert, upon which he took along Frater Omnia Vincam, known in the “world of men” as Victor Neuburg, the acolyte who was in love with him and received Crowley's abuse. Although this endeavor was a full three years before Crowley would learn the sexual secret of the OTO, on one occasion he used Neuburg in an act of sex magic, taking the submissive role to Neuburg's dominance. Neuburg took notes as Crowley described what he saw.
The crossing of the Abyss is part of the old Enochian system, which posits a universe of 30 concentric Aires (or Aethyrs) with the earth at the center, much as the ancients did with the seven planetary spheres, although there are other arrangements. The 30th Aire is the lowest; hence, it is the closest to the earth. The First Aire is thus the highest, but there are said to be unknown, unnumbered Aires above it.
Each Aire, as seen in the discussion of the Babalon Working, has its angels, kings, Seniors, cherubs, etc. associated with it. Working with each Aire requires invoking these entities, just as Parsons invoked EXARP in January 1946. The full ritual is full of consecrations, hexagrams and pentagrams, and takes at least an hour to perform for each Aire. The ritual must be recited from memory, and “vibrated” in the original Enochian language.
The Aires are transversed in reverse order, as the highest numbered Aire is closest to the earth. Crowley worked with the 30th Aire first, then the 29th, and so on. On the 21st day, the day of his working with the 10th Aire, Crowley had his Abyss-crossing experience. The 10th Aire is guarded by the demon Choronzon, who dwells in the Abyss.
For Crowley, Aires 30 through 11 involved astral vision (“skrying in the Aethyrs”). The working of the 10th Aire involved a full-blown possession experience in which Crowley's psyche was overtaken by Choronzon for a time. Neuburg was extremely frightened by this intense change in his usually amicable master, and was glad that Crowley was bound inside a consecrated circle. Unlike the invocations of the previous nights, there was no physical contact between the two men. The possession lasted until the energy produced by the blood of three sacrificed pigeons ran out, and then it ended.
Crowley emerged with his sanity intact, having survived a
face-to-face encounter with the blind forces of the Abyss. He had tasted madness and survived. He had crossed the Abyss by giving up his ego. He was now a Magister Templi (Master of the Temple) in the A∴A∴.
Crowley scryed the remaining Aires during the course of the next nine days, then finished the rite (and his desert walk). A detailed account of these endeavors and his ordeal can be found in Crowley's The Vision and the Voice, as well as in his Confessions.
As noted, it is unclear to what extent Parsons emulated his master in his Abyss working, for which he may very well have retired to the Mojave desert, as Crowley had to that of Algeria. This period was a low point in Parsons’ life: his former glory lost, he was employed at a gas station. The working lasted 40 days, whatever form it took—longer than the entire Babalon Working, and longer than Crowley's own Algerian working with Neuburg. Unfortunately, most of the records documenting the endeavor are now gone, if they even existed.
Whatever form it did take, this operation was Parsons’ Black Pilgrimage, foretold by Babalon three years earlier in Liber 49, vs. 33, 58, and 61. After the end of the 40 days, Parsons wrote a two-page document called The Book of AntiChrist. In it he predicted the manifestation of Babalon upon the earth within seven years, which he would not have done had he considered Cameron to be Babalon. He also predicted that an entire nation would embrace Thelema. Babalon told him these things would come to pass only if he survived the next seven years. He did not, and it is odd that Babalon, or Parsons’ own psyche, or whatever it was, would even suggest that the young man might not, as if it or he knew his sad fate.
In “The Black Pilgrimage,” which was the first part of The Book of AntiChrist, Parsons compared himself to several infamous but obscure figures from the past. He referred to them as past lives of his, though probably just as a literary device. The first, Simon Magus, was the legendary first-century Samaritan magician who made a living selling miracles to the populace. According to the Bible, after his baptism by Philip (Acts 8:9 ff), Simon continued to peddle his wares under a Christian guise, giving rise to our word “Simony.” Simon preached a gnostic message in which his consort Helen, found in a brothel, was the fallen Sophia (i.e., wisdom) whom he had redeemed.
The second past life was Gilles de Retz (usually spelled “Rais” or “Raiz”), a child torturer and killer also known as Bluebeard the pirate. Parsons mentioned an incident apparently not documented elsewhere, in which de Rais (ca. 1404–1430) allegedly tried to make Joan of Arc (ca. 1412–1431) the “Queen of the Witchcraft.”
The third figure was “Francis Hepburne, Earl Bothwell,” but Parsons must have been referring to Francis Stewart, the fifth Earl of Bothwell. The fourth Earl had been named Hepburn. The fifth Earl was the “Arch-Dianist” of Scotland, meaning the spiritual leader of the Diana-worshipping witches, who saw in Stewart the incarnation of the “horned god.” He also had a claim to the throne, toward which he directed his supernatural efforts. In fact, Stewart was the first cousin of King James VI of Scotland, the same murderous King James I of England whose translation of the Bible remains a standard, and who had John Dee arrested. As noted, the King feared witchcraft greatly, and he saw in his cousin the very devil whom he knew the witches worshiped. When Stewart busted into the King's house on July 24, 1593, the King asked whether Stewart came for his life or for his soul. Had James died heirless, Stewart could have claimed the throne. Some of Stewart's anti-Christian writings are even used in our age. Parsons mentioned him specifically in regard to a Gille Duncan, about whom there seems to be no information.
The fourth life was Count Cagliostro, the famous 18th-century alchemist who studied under St. Germain, the supposedly immortal miracle worker, and Seraphina (AKA Lorenza Feliciana), Cagliostro's wife. During the witchhunts, Seraphina testified against her husband—admittedly under the threat of torture—and he was sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life in prison, and Seraphina was allowed to retire to a monastery of nuns.31
The common thread in all of these past lives is the poor relationship with women: Parsons was still beating himself up for having trusted Betty. In addition to pummeling himself, Parsons also trounced Christianity and “the lying priests, conniving judges, [and] blackmailing police,” ending the second part of The Book of AntiChrist, called “The Manifesto of the AntiChrist,” with the following:
I, BELARION, ANTICHRIST, in the year 1949 of the rule of the Black Brotherhood called Christianity, do make my Manifesto to all men. And I, THE ANTICHRIST, come among you, saying:
An end to the pretense, and lying hypocrisy of Christianity.
An end to the servile virtues, and superstitious restrictions.
An end to the slave morality.
An end to prudery and shame, to guilt and sin, for these are of the only evil under the Sun, that is fear.
An end to all authority that is not based on courage and manhood, to the authority of lying priests, conniving judges, blackmailing police, and
An end to the servile flattery and cajolery of mobs, the coronations of mediocrities, the ascension of dolts.
An end to restriction and inhibition, for I, THE ANTICHRIST, am come among you preaching the Word of the BEAST 666, which is, “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.”
And I, BELARION, ANTICHRIST, do lift up my voice and prophesy, and I say: I shall bring all men to the law of the BEAST 666, and in His law I shall conquer the world.
And within seven years of this time, BABALON, THE SCARLET WOMAN HILARION will manifest among ye, and bring this my work to its fruition.
An end to conscription, compulsion, regimentation, and the tyranny of false laws.
And within nine years a nation shall accept the Law of the BEAST 666 in my name, and that nation will be the first nation of earth.
And all who accept me the ANTICHRIST and the law of the BEAST 666, shall be accursed and their joy shall be a thousandfold greater than the false joys of the false saints.
And in my name BELARION shall they work miracles, and confound our enemies, and none shall stand before us.
Therefore I, THE ANTICHRIST call upon all the Chosen and elect and upon all men, come forth now in the name of Liberty, that we may end for ever the tyranny of the Black Brotherhood.
Witness my hand and seal on this [deleted] day of [month deleted], 1949, that is the year of BABALON 4066.
“Hilarion” was the magical motto of the Scarlet Woman Jeanne Foster, an American member of the A∴A∴, whom Crowley called “the Cat.” Foster had completed a working with Crowley in 1915 that he later believed produced a Magical Child in the form of Charles Stansfeld Jones (Frater Achad). The name “Hilarion” comes from one of the “Mahatmas,” or Ascended Masters, of Theosophy: Hilarion Smerdis, who was said to have been the angel who dictated the book of Revelation to St. John of Patmos. It is unknown why Parsons referred to Babalon by this name, which was later one of Cameron's magical names as well. She may have chosen it because of this document.
On May 8, 1949, some months after the Abyss working—and possibly because of it, in Parsons’ mind—he was hired by the Hughes Aircraft Company. At that time, he wrote Crowley, “It has now been almost a year since I last wrote—at that time I was near mental and financial collapse. Since that time I have laboriously gained some sort of mental equilibrium and gradually regained something of a position in my old field in a large aircraft company. My one aim is to rebuild myself.”
Also in 1949, Cameron returned from Mexico and made Parsons a green box with the Hebrew letter shin painted in red on the lid. He kept his Babalon Working documents in it.
In January of 1951, Parsons made a striking discovery and wrote Germer:
I have the text of Dee's skrying in the Seventh Aire, which as he said “…so terrified him that, beseeching God to have mercy upon me, I finally answered that I will from this day forward meddle no more herein.” The Voice, speaking from Kelley, resulted in a sinister dissociation of Kelley's personality. The parallel with my own Working with Ron i
s appalling. After this Kelley robbed Dee, absconded with his wife, and developed [“continued” would be more appropriate] a criminal confidence career…In view of the fact that this mss [manuscript] was unknown to Hubbard and I [sic], the parallelism is really extraordinary. I have another prophecy in Khaled Khan,32 which I shall send later.
This realization of history repeating itself may have hit Parsons too late to do anything about it, but he was not defeated. Parsons worked in the Propellants Section at Hughes, and by March 1950 he was listing his title as “Group Leader in Charge of Propellants, Propulsion and Launching Group of the Research and Development Laboratories.” Circumstances had gone well from the date of his hiring May 8, 1949 until June 1950, at which time the Israelis, with whom he had been negotiating since October 1948 via the American Technion Society, requested a detailed proposal for “the construction of Explosive Plants and the development of rockets and other armaments,” which Parsons would design, build and operate. In order to accomplish this goal, he planned to relocate to the newly formed Israel. According to Parsons’ FBI file he negotiated with no less than the head of the American Technion Society, a man named Rosenfeldt.
Parsons worked on the proposal in July and August. In September, Hughes had him working on a proposal for a “Rocket Propellant Loading Plant.” The pricing data in this proposal was what Parsons needed to finish his proposal to the Israelis. He took 17 of his own documents from Hughes, many of which were still designated as “Confidential” or “Restricted,” and passed them on via Cameron to a friend for typing. His FBI file says this (female) friend was a part of the typing pool at Hughes. This incident occurred, in Parsons’ own words, “about the 16th of September,” at the recommendation of von Kármán, who was also interviewed by the FBI with regard to the Chinese Tsien's espionage case. Von Kármán's participation was later found to be incidental in both cases.
