#babalond

[companyof-thewormwoodstar]

Faces of Babalon - Mishlen Linden (editor)

The Faces of Babalon is a collection of essays written by a small group of cis women that have connected with the deity in a meaningful way. The essays are brief, not more than 30 pages and self-described as a chapbook, and bracketed by channelled messages from D. Koons.

The authors are a mixed bag. Assuming I have found the right people: Linda Falorio was an artist that created The Shadow Tarot as well as a psychotherapist (according to an obituary), Soror Chen does not exist online as far as I could find, Mishlen Linden is a fine artist that mixes spirituality with sculpture and has contributed to other books on Babalon, Nema’s name is to vague to find any results, and the main result for Raven Greywalker is an essay on Thelemic sadomasochistic magic rituals (which is fitting with her essay).

The essays are dense with information and all of them are heavily based in a mix of sex magic, the various aspects of Babalon as a figure and as a deity, and with a liberal helping of appropriation of chakras, east Asian concepts, and Kabbalah. In my opinion, the first is the best.

I have read this book twice now, once as a PDF and once as a print copy that I now own. The writing that focuses exclusively on Babalon is intensely interesting and explorative in a way I’ve not seen in other books (yet). It probes unmarked territory in ways of conceptualising the goddess and includes gender expansive and trans readings of Her, as well as being a collection of essays written without the influence or need to cater to cisgender men. One essay plunges into Babalon as a sex worker - something often alluded to in other writings but shied away from confirming or exploring deeper.

A few essays are intensely critical of Crowley & his attempts at constructing Babalon as a goddess that is both liberated but submissive to men, a welcome read considering some writings on Her.

I do not recommend this book at all for beginners to metaphysical or religious practice, since the appropriation is mixed in with non-appropriative writings on Babalon and may be hard to parse in parts (in other parts, it’s incredibly blatant and obvious), however I do recommend it for those experienced in picking appropriation out from a text and interested in different and unique views on Babalon.

posted first on my patreon

[companyof-thewormwoodstar]

On Latin Epithets for BABALON

Desanctify the sacred, profane the holy. Latin restricted into the Holy Tongue of Mass has made it into a Precious Christian Weapon. Revelation Ladies love nothing more than subversive, transgressive language & profaning all that is sacred. The riotous pleasure of pollution is a love language.  Latin epithets are a delicious means to name Babalon’s innumerable facets while speaking Her language of inverting the chapel.

Profane the mass, turn the church on its head: crypts skyward and spire hellward. Take up vestments and play at ritual, for all profane acts are sacred to the Magna Mater, to Babalon Coccineum, the Mother of Abominations and Harlots. The Latin Mass excludes and separates, subjugates and creates two classes of the faithful: the learned and cloistered ministry and the devoted, howling, heaving mass. Take up their sacred language, give it to those howling masses so that they may also be learned, may close that widening chasm. Tear the elitist ministry asunder. Share Latin freely and rip it away from its special temporal space. Down with the cloistered church, down with the pearly gates.

[companyof-thewormwoodstar]

Shake and Tremble! For she is runing across the dawn sky to light the sun from her torch, and the dusk to gather the stars as a crown. Tides of potential lap at her feet and the moon falls lovestruck into her arms. Embark upon your creative endeavours, o child of dusk, and know thyself.