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To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org (Thelema93-Listserv)
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nigris (333))
Subject: Babalon, AC and Women (again?!)
Date: Mon, 5 May 1997 23:48:31 -0700 (PDT)

49970505 AA1  Hail Satan!  NULatix

found this on the nets today, thought it was worth asking for review
and commentary.  an interesting perspective, this Soror has.

333
---

[from http://www.brotherblue.org/brethren/chen.htm ]

   Brothress Chen
   Sublime Soror and
   Nubile Neu-Neutopian
   Usenet Sex Goddess
   
   . April 1992 e.v. An IIIxxi Sol in Aries Volume VI, no. 8 .
  
[credits shifted to end of document] 
   
   So, right after doing our Inter-Kontinental Kali Working, my husband
   gave me a copy of Angry Women, and then we saw Thelma and Louise. Now
   I'm sure that soon women are just going to go crazy from all the shit
   they take all the time, and they're going to start commiting random
   acts of violence and desperation. This, then, is the "Wimmen on the
   Edge" issue of the Bahlasti Papers, in which we will vent before we
   explode or blow something up...
  
 
   FROM THE DESK OF THE GRAND PUBAETTE 
   
     "Magnificent beasts of women with large limbs, and fire and light in
     their eyes, and masses of flaming hair about them...." 
     
   What a beautiful and powerful image! So why have I been afraid to
   approach this article? Is it because my mother was such a terror? Or
   because Crowley's Babalons ended up abandoned dipsomaniacs, raving,
   mad, manic, lost? Or because I fear that Babalon will forever
   challenge and ultimately consume any shreds of security that I've
   managed to build into my life? Babalon has been a difficult archetype
   for me to understand. I was not raised by religious parents, so the
   images of Babalon in Revelations are not particularly shocking to me.
   My Great-Grandmother, after whom I was named, was a Suffragette. My
   Mother was one of the strongest and smartest people I have ever known.
   She was large-limbed and athletic, fiery and fierce. But she was an
   unspeakably difficult person. Madness overwhelmed her psyche,
   terrifying us, her children. She was a Babalon locked in the cage of
   society. My Mother's life was war. She taught her girls how to be
   fierce, independent, and strong, but she also taught us how to allure
   and control men. She understood sexual politics, and feeling trapped
   by social programming, wanted a way to control from within a woman's
   role, secretly and manipulatively. In return, we were taught by our
   Father that strong women are a problem, are out of line, unfeminine
   and sick. Behave. Be nice. Don't be a raving bitch like your Mother.
   
   Things aren't so terribly different now than when I was growing up.
   The Thompson Senate hearings showed our subtle, secret, and instant
   mistrust of women. Strong women who are equal and armed with truth and
   integrity are bad, dangerous, unladylike.
   
   Crowley tried to establish a different role for women. Yet his basic
   lack of respect for, and understanding of women is betrayed by the
   bulk of his writing. His novels, in particular, preach his convenient
   and offensive view that a woman's "True Will" should be that of a
   help-meet to her man's work. He considered women to be an inferior
   subspecies of humanity. His Scarlet Women embodied Babalon by virtue
   of being fucked by "The Beast". Leah Hirsig's diaries chronicle a
   tragic descent into madness. When Crowley changed bed partners, Leah
   was abandoned by her lover, her identity, and her purpose. She wisely
   longed to have a ritual in which the old Scarlet Woman would pass on
   the bloodline to the new Queen Bee, but she never recognised her own
   calling and right, nor ever got beyond the idea of there being only
   one title-bearing Babalon. I feel love and gratitude to Leah. But she
   was a martyr, and martyrs are a waste.
   
   Is being Babalon any different than being someone's wife? A woman in a
   relationship is property, owned by the man. She's his girlfriend, his
   wife. Nema once asked if Babalon exists independently of The Beast...
   
   A few years ago I met a woman who was Babalon to a famous magician's
   Beast. It was a very important meeting for me. She was beautiful--
   looking like a crone with long hair and an intricate network of fine
   lines all over her face. At the time I was wondering if there were any
   female Magistrar Templis out there. Her paintings are stunning,
   magical, powerful. Her poetry staggering, inspired, and her catalog of
   experience rich, extreme, vivid. I asked her to find a scribe and pass
   on her bloodline, but she was uncomfortable with the idea. I had the
   impression of a woman who was locked into her own mythology-- her own
   exclusive hold on experience, grief , mystery. She had grown bitter
   and mean through coveting her title. I felt she had no more trust or
   love for women than did society. She did not seem to feel that all
   women can embody Babalon. I asked her if she thought women could do a
   Babalon Working for themselves, as opposed to having Babalon invoked
   upon them. She did not answer. My meeting with this woman was
   devastating for me. So much potential. A woman's genius. A gift to the
   world that was not given. When you believe in your own myth, it
   explodes.
   
   In the years that I have spent in the O.T.O., I have encountered two
   versions of the sexual role of Babalon as wanton harlot: One in which
   a woman devotes herself to one Beast and loves all men through him;
   and one in which a woman has sexual relations with as many men as are
   willing in order to fairly literally love "all". In this, as in all
   things, I believe it is only valid to follow your own bliss. Babalon's
   sexual license requires freedom from pedestrian moral judgement. It is
   not easy to get around negative self-image and not restrict behavior
   on one hand, or overcompensate with wildly self-destructive or
   compromising behavior on the other. But Babalon's beauty comes from
   knowing her self, and radiating that self, unfettered, to the world.
   
   In the end, particular questions of Babalon's sexuality-- whether she
   should be promiscuous or monogamous, whether she should be on top or
   bottom, etc., etc.--are really missing the mark. These are
   intellectual questions that, for me, reduce us to the literal and robs
   meaning of dimension. I see "Babalon astride the Beast, holding the
   reins of compassion that unite them" in a different light. Perhaps it
   is because I feel women need to start invoking Babalon upon themselves
   through acts of devotion and ritual. We need to trust the image of the
   strong, powerful, glorious woman, and let her come through us. For me,
   artistic creation is a means of invocation. Artistic genius creates
   directly from the Divine without translation, description, or
   explanation. It requires an initial descent into Hell, but if you
   survive you get strong enough to hold those reins of passion and
   create-- genius!
   
   I envision a world where all women are strong and beautiful. I look
   forward to a world which reflects the gifts of women's genius.
   
   -- Chen --
   
   Address all inquiries to:
   
   BAHLASTI PAPERS
   c/o Kali Lodge
   Ordo Templi Orientis
   Post Office Box 15038
   New Orleans, LA 70115
   
   Contributors to this issue:
   
   Soror Chen, Frater Turbator, Frater NChSh,
   Frater Lugis Thor, Frater Numa 718, Nema,
   C.R. Torrey, Margrat, Soror Nancy, Jet Satin
   
EOF