26 June 2002...August 2002
(24 pgs)
Here are some links explaining who the Whore of Babylon is and what the beast
she is riding represents:
Who Is The Woman Riding The
Beast?
The
Woman Riding on the Beasts.
The Whore of
Babylon.
SYNOPSIS
At Binah Sophie changes back into Promethea and she and
Barbara discover Dr. John Dee who is one of the powerhouse of benevolent adepts
or Illuminati. He shows them Babalon who becomes Marie. Afterwards they...
QUOTES
“So you’re Jellyhead. Good name. Quite prophetic as it
turns out.” – Painted Doll, pg. 3
“Now why do so many of them say that, eh?
Why “Oh, mother?”” – Painted Doll, pg 3
“God knows who we are. And she
doesn’t hate us.” – Promethea(5), pg 5
“Is that how big I am when I’m
Promethea?” – Sophie
“You’re pretty tall.” – Promethea(5), pgs 6-7
“We’re
the sacred animal here: Woman.” - Sophie, pg. 6
“And the way this place
smells of myrrh. That’s what we smell of, all us Prometheas.” – Promethea(5),
pg. 6
“Here is UNDERSTANDING. That was all that we sought, and so we crave no
higher place.” – John Dee, pg. 10
“They are ADEPTS. Having reached here they
will never leave.” – John Dee, pg 13
"It's raining light, in my head." -
Promethea, pg. 16
“She changes not. Tis but thine eye alone is changed, with
comprehension.” – John Dee, pg 18
"Like you, I was afraid when first the
Angels told the dreadful things that I should do. And yet I did them." - John
Dee, pg. 22
"Fare you well, good wives. Say nothing as thou take thy leave of
SILENCE." - John Dee, pg. 23
"Inside I was always this $&in' giorgeous.
My ass was always this great. And I never cared a $& for nothin' but doin'
right." - Promethea(5), pg 24
"Mother Nature, that's the Empress. Endless
fertility. It's this path that first connect the highest female force with the
male, fertilizing her." - Promethea(6)
"On a first date? Boy. She really is a
big whore." - Promethea(5), pg. 24
NOTES & ANNOTATIONS
Binah
Reality Creator Workbook
Series
The following table might help a bit with the Enochian alphabet:
TL found it at a Contemporary Shamanism website.
First here is a short review of this issue from the Fourth
Rail
and here is some discussion of this issue from Barbelith
Underground
Page 1 Panel 1: Karen Breughel takes her work home with her. She
appears to have a husband and child.
Panel 2 Lucille Ball (no relation).
Is that
just a cloud or an alien type head looking upwards visible just outside the
window behind the venetian blinds?
Barbara as Promethea painting on the
wall.
Ms. Ball is reading Astonishing Stories.
Another title for a Marto Neptura Promethea story is revealed:
Promethea and
the Centipede Women.
Note the Body building ad on the back page.
Panel
3: Stacia Vanderveer smoking a post coital cigarette.
?19061 B7? Weeping
Gorilla doll on floor.
I assume a Carnal Pope is one who has broken his vow
of chastity and experienced carnal knowledge. Here are some famous Carnal
Popes.
Limp Incense and Strawberry Fields Forever Amber with India
Rubber Soul
There is a song called Incense and
Peppermints by the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
Strawberry
Fields Forever is a Beatles song. Forever Amber is the name of novel by
Kathleen Winsor. Here is a review of
the novel.It was filmed in
1947.
Rubber
Soul is the name of a Beatles album.
Panel 4: Weeping Gorilla doll
in car.
Panel 5: Great way to open your front door.
Page 2 Panels 2-5: As the proud owner of two wonderful
pussycats I find it disappointing that Bruno Smiliac’s cats couldn’t warn
him that the Painted Doll is lying in wait for him.
Panel 4: There are
at least 2 extra Jellyhead suits here.
Panel 5: Made over Promethea
foils bank raid. This happened at the start of Issue #15.
Evil
8 Can we take them seriously? Not if we see what happened to them at the end of
Issue
#15.
Bruno Smiliac obviously likes to collect press clippings about his
activities as Jelly Head.
Page 3 Panel 1: the Painted Doll was hiding between the two Jellyhead
suits. This is the first time we’ve seen the Painted Doll since he blew up
himself and Benny Solomon way back in Issue
#8.
Panel 3: Nice heart on the gun muzzle.
Panel 4: A
good example of implied violence without actually showing it
properly.
Panel 6: Good question.
Page 4 top panel: Top
panel Promethea moths visible. Water coming out of Binah.
Panel
2:
Been through it before. Me too coming the other way – Thanks to
Fritz Ruehr for pointing out that
If you look at the rock formation they
are approaching in panel 1, it is the spread legs of a woman, Binah her vagina,
and they are thus returning to the womb. So, they have come this way before at
birth, but the other direction.
I thought the shape of the rock formation was
well done, in not being too lewd or explicit, rather like the violence on the
previous page.
Panel 3: Holy mother of
god…pearl…whispering
Page 5: Fritz Ruehr points out that:
The
opening where Promethea's outfit reappears (in its new form) is pretty clearly
vaginal, too, as are the shapes of the moths in a way.
Page 5 Panel
2: Silent 3rd shephiroth. Gods’ 3rd head.
Page 5 Panel 3; There
is no moth named “Promethea Saturnaides” but the Callosamia
Promethea moth is a genus of the subfamily Saturniinae and the family
Saturniidae which provides a good connection with the planet Saturn.
Page
7 Panel 6: Note that Sophie develops a third eye when she puts on the red
Promethea costume.
Page 8 :walk in water. Black 3rd sphere sacred to
Saturn meet father.
Panel 4: Binah is highest female sphere
understanding how is that different from
Binah = Understanding
Daath =
knowledge
Chokmah = Wisdom
Page 8 Panel 5/Page 9 Panel 1: John Dee
doesn’t have a halo around his head yet but he will soon. Of the 8 faces behind
him one is Aleister Crowley another is Austin Osman Spare and a third one is
William Blake. (The one with grey in his hair).
JHW3 writes that the
others are unknown to history. I was sort of hoping one of them might have been
Carlos Castaneda's Don Juan. The one with antlers on his head is probably a
shaman of some kind.
Crowley had a vision of four adepts in September 1936,
after the publication of Book 4:
"Crowley received the advance copies on
September 18. Five days later, in the early dawn, Crowley noted in his diary:
'had vision of four adepts, the Chinese, the Central Asian & two
others.'"
(Lawrence Sutin: Do what thou wilt, page 383)
TL suggest
that the two heads right above Dee could be the "Chinese" and the "Central
Asian" (Tibetan?)
This is a much older version of the John Dee we saw
last time in Issue
15. He now has a white beard. Here he is first seen demonstrating the
universal sign of silence sacred to all librarians otherwise known as
"Sshhh".
NOTE: Pages 9-23 all have thought balloons or captions
replacing spoken dialogue.
Page 9 Panels 1-2: I’m only guessing as I
haven’t read the book but the Powerhouse might be a reference to a novel called
the Daemonomania
by John
Crowley [no relation] published in 2000.
Here’s a review of it from Bookbrowse and
another review calling it an Occult Classic.
Thanks to Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s Illuminatus trilogy it has
been virtually impossible to take Illuminati conspiracy theories seriously
anymore. See Illuminati’R’Us and
the Illuminati Conspiracy
Archive.
Also here is an invitation
to join the world’s oldest and most succesful conspiracy, and the Independent Agents of the
Illuminati, and the more long winded Illuminati of the Grand
Recursive Order of the Knights of the Lambda Calculus ,
watch out for A Satanic Plot for a One
World Government.
and on a more serious note the Official Site of the Illuminati
Order.
Finally here are 50 Awful Things about the
Iluminati.
Page 10 Panel 2: Book of Enoch.
Here
is the earliest version of the Enochian
alphabet.
Page 10 Panel 3/Page 11 Panel 1: Note the only
difference between the two women on the doors is their mouths.
Page
12: Here is a fuller version of the City of the Pyramids we see spread out
on the ground in front of us:
Click
on image for full sized version.
The image is taken from the City of the Pyramids
webpage.
Page 13, panel 2: Edward Kelly.
Page
13, panels 2-3: "upon another young Jack Parsons sits, betrothed to She
who reigneth here. She promised if he loved her he should burn eternally, and so
he does, in endless ECSTASY."
Thanks to TL for the following
information
Jack Parsons, born in 1914, was one of the founders of NASA's
rocket design center, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. A crater on the dark side
of the moon was named in his honour.
In 1941, Parsons joined the Agapa Lodge
of Crowley's O.T.O. Parsons rose quickly through the ranks, taking over the
Agape Lodge at Crowley's decree within a year.
In 1946, Parsons and L. Ron
Hubbard (later known as founder of "Scientology") performed the Babalon Working
and intended to bring about "love, understanding, and Dionysian freedom (...)
the necessary counterbalance or correspondence to the manifestation of Horus"
(J.Parsons). Babalon, a Thelemic counterpart of Kali or Isis (or the
Tibetan-Buddhist Vajrayogini), 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."
In its
initial stages, the Babalon working was intended to attract an elemental to
serve as a partner for Parsons elaborate sex magick rituals. The method employed
was that of the solo VIII degree working of the O.T.O. Parson used his magical
wand to whip up a vortex of energy so the elemental would be summoned.
Translated into plain English, Parsons jerked off in the name of spiritual
advancement whilst Hubbard scanned the astral plane for signs and visions. The
elemental turned up in February 1946 as a green-eyed, flaming redhead named
Marjorie Cameron. With her, Parsons tried to give birth to a moonchild or
homonculus. The operation was formulated to open an interdimensional doorway,
rolling out the red carpet for the appearance of the goddess Babalon in human
form, employing the Enochian calls of John Dee and the attraction of the sex
force of the duo's copulation for this end.
Parson died in a chemical
explosion in 1952. (after Richard Metzger: Jack Whiteside Parsons: Anti-Christ
Superstar;
Michael Staley: Beloved of Babalon,
A. Mitchel: The Babalon
working.
Information about Jack Parsons can be found here .
In 1989, the British occultist Joel
Biroco performed the KAOS-BABALON working and initiated the "156 current".
Biroco had been editor of the occult review KAOS from 1984-89 and withdrew from
occultism after the KAOS-BABALON working and the publication of KAOS # 13.
In July 2002, he published however a new number of KAOS, encouraged by Alan
Moore. In his editorial, Biroco writes:
"It slowly became apparently to me
that I had not failed to manifest the KAOS-BABALON 156 current in 1989 after
all, but rather we had indeed initiated this dynamic change but it had taken
over a decade for the magical seed to emerge from its dormancy and start to
grow... But the nature of the mail I was receiving... made it seem worthwile to
once more put together an issue of KAOS. I am grateful also to Alan Moore for
enthusiastically encouraging me in this endeavour, such that my resolve never to
return weakened enough to get the ball rolling." (page 8)
KAOS 14 contains two contributions by Alan
Moore.
As Joel Biroco explained to me
There is much inaccuracy in
published sources such as Staley's Beloved of Babalon and Carter's Sex and
Rockets about Parson's Babalon Working, my review article in Kaos 14 clears up
most of these difficulties.
Moore wanted to write a story about Jack
Parsons and Ron Hubbard. DC refused the story because they feared trouble with
Scientology. Moore had a night-long telephone discussion with the lawyer of DC
but could not persuade the editor. Even when Moore offered to change the name of
Hubbard, the answer was "no". Moore was so annoyed, that he said also no to a
hardcover edition of "Watchmen" and a series of Watchmen Action
figures.
(Moore tells this story in an interview with the German newspaper
Die Zeit. The interview was published in 2001, the German text is
accessible here. I
don't know if the interview has also been published in English, in the other
interviews with Alan Moore, he doesn't seem to mention the Jack Parsons
story).
for the story of Jack Parson told by Alan see
which features the controversial Alan Moore and Melinda Gebbie Cobweb story,
previously banned by DC Comics from the ABC/Wildstorm anthology Tomorrow
Stories, providing Moore's heroine and her fans with the sense of completion
they are due. Note: The story is published in its original form, but to respect
DC's copyright on "Cobweb," the story has been re-titled "La Toile" (the French
word for "The Web")
The story appears on pgs. 71-76 and appears as La Toile's
Casebook of the Crepuscular entitled Brighter than You Think and dedicated to
John Whiteside Parsons (1914-1952).
An image from the story as printed in Top
Shelf Asks the Big Questions can be found at Melinda Gebbie's entry at Lambiek
Comiclopedia.
Page 13 Panel 6: Here is the fuller version of the
image seen on the floor:
On page 88 of The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook by Sandy Robertson (Samuel
Weiser, 1988) the following picture is accompanied by this text
Female
disciples were branded (or painted) with the Mark of the Beast. this is Leila Waddell
Rough transcript to be fixed up later Issue 21 Karen
Breughel
Lucille Ball no relation
Outside window anyone else notice an
alien like shadow. Have to ask JHW3 about this
Astonishing
Stories
Promethea and the Centipede Women
Carnal Popes
Limp Incense
& Strawberry Fields amber with India Rubber Soul
Bruno Smiliac
2
cats
Why do so many of them say that. Why oh mother?
Nice heart on the
gun
Church perfumed honey scent myrrh archway
Holy Mother of
god,pearl
Holy hole whispering
Silent 3rd sephiroth
Red costume
now
We’re the sacred animal here woman
Promethea moth…promethea
saturnaides
Saturn
3rd eye
black 3rd sphere
Binah highest female
sphere
Understandign daath knowledge
Chokmah wisdom
Powerhouse,
benevolent adepts
The illuminati
Dr. John Dee
Hod younger
Communed
with Angels
Book of Enoch. Hebrew adept
Sacred 3rd domain
Realm form
becomes possible
1 single point
2 line
3 space in 2 dimesions
triangle
triangle element of water all water compassion has its’
origin
cup that overfloweth
Enochian language
Dictated spirits scrying
glass tables that map all existence
12 x 13 = 156
each square
symbols
viewed from overhead
square ziggurat
flattened
summit
arrayed in rows mighty township
daughters of understanding
city
of pyramids
somebody on top of everyone
Adepts Edward Kelly
Partners in
life
Jack Parsons betrothed to she who reigneth here burn eternally in
endless ecstasy
More than one name nature
Know revelation…lewdly shews
herself
Wanton…stoops…displays wetness mystery
Whore babalon…know
worship
Swollen passion…siants grown mad…sweet foam of my bosom
Scorn me
end of things
Stern fire about my loins
Glisten damp sacrifice
Enter me
wantonly dreg of brothels consumed burn markets world sent bare
Worst
creatures lie down with me…wretched sores not refused. Mead rapes sanctified
holy stars understanding
Raining light in my head
Drink filth adulteries
made clean
Fouls me joy paradise
Seed wisdom runneth womb couched beasts
monsters primitive formless chaos know me she no earthly man woman embrace Whore
to all
Fallen sight.spat name sex parents Trish boyfriend screwing
Hated
harlot endures fathers infinite desires plundered moment birth nakedness
revelation calculation Hebrews name 156
Worlds destruction concluded
Babalon
Morning sweet touched by none breath kindness milk solace
Angels
Eye is changed comprehension worlds ease breast comfort Greeks
156
Font pity without end
Marie
Girded clouds lowered firmament made
Queen of heaven
Whore madonna
Compassion stooped low aspect cast
down
Shekinah Bride worlds streets ragged reviled
Sophia wisdom female
face
Understanding blookd noble wine earth degraded bitter succour mother
night
Isis, Hecate, Selene
Black widden moon womb
Taketh in
receive
Virgin whore
Scarlet fertile passion
Great annihilating
fire
BABALON
Sunk down world
Mary Herod Isis Set Scarlet woman,
mistress beast Crowley
Leah Hirsig
Prostituted Paris streets star gouged
breast mother harlot world
Vision of sorrow
Understanding
decanted
Fiery mead spirit flow
Fire of heaven nectar
Moonfoam..true
blood…sangreal
Cahriot red vintage
Apocalypse
Affection
Strength
lions
Concubi8ne revelation
Inspiration take child…blaze consumed
Moth
Saturn
Vision compassion
Pass on mercy judgement
Harmony victory
splendour
Radiance foundation kingdom enflamed
Comprehension silence
word
Womb forming inchoate
water fire highest understanding sorrow
compassion
Tears water earth fruitful responsibility
Tawdry low theatre
world of man
DALETH door
14th Highway empress
in every new place I’m a
new person
Boo boo greenery mother nature endless fertility
Connect
highest male female fertilizing first date big whore
