babalon afterwords green

7/25/2019 Babalon Afterwords Green

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FTERWORDSFTERWORDS

FromBabalon and Other Playsby P A. G

.scarletimprint.com


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T

. ritin is the first and last rite, aninner ritual. It is the evocation of imainary entities, the exploration

of imainary realms, a fanlin of lanuae to create dazzlin cracs inreality. hen a man imaines, he creates a form on the astral plane

(McGreor Mathers). And thats the orin hypothesis I eep returninto. ritin is the temporary construction of surreality.

So these plays are texts scattered alon a pathay, their meaninframentin and reformin even as I reread them, lie a lon paper chaseof torn Tarot cards that I folloed don an alleyay in Toronto in 1972.Im no maus, just a scribbler, a scribe of Thoth sentenced to a lifelonapprenticeship.

I as educated by the Jesuits, a useful trainin in ritual and maicalvisualization. Then Catholicism collapsed in my teens under the impactof discoverin the Beats and explorin existentialism as popularised byColin ilson. Lie the Surrealists hom I also idolised, I as tryin toreconcile the visions and voices of the unconscious ith radical action inthe orld. Simultaneously illiam Burrouhs subverted linear conceptsof spacetime and causality. And I as readin a lot of science fiction notably the apocalyptic dystopias of J. G. Ballard.

Yet there as also an underlyin family influence. My father, outardly

hihly conventional and nominally Catholic, collected strane boos,to my mothers beilderment. His shelves included A. E. aite on theQabalah, Grillot de GivrysPicture Museum of Sorcery Magic and Alchemy,the Symonds bioraphy of Croley, hich I read avidly and MontaueSummersHistory of itchcraft. He admitted hed corresponded ith Sum-mers as a youn man discussin J. . Huysmans, author of Rebours,andmodern itchcraft. He shoed me a letter from July 1945, in Summersthic blac handritin. Yes, I fear Satanism has been let loose upon theorld. The dar poers are fearfully in evidence...

I as intriued by all this but durin my early tenties dar poersseemed to manifest themselves quite overtly in the control mechanismsof the electronic media and the influence of the military industrialcomplex. Parapsycholoists ere experimentin ith telepathy and sleepresearch and I ondered hat miht result if these techniques eredeveloped to manipulate the private orld of dreamin. So I rote TheDream Laboratoryas an auditory assault for voices and music, in pseudo-documentary format, focusin more on lanuae and poetic imaery


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than characterisation, in an attempt to exploit the peculiar poer of theradio soundscape to evoe a unique subjective inscape in the mind of the

listener. Althouh radio drama doesnt have a hih profile no it is stillvery much a riters medium, unlie the collective serfdom of film andTV. Indeed, all the pieces here ere oriinally envisioned for radio.

Subsequent radio projects in the seventies led to intervies ithRichard Cavendish, editor ofMan, Myth and Magic; Croley biorapherFrancis X. in; Golden Dan historian Ellic Hoe; EVPexpert PeterBanda; and Colin ilson, ho by no had beun his on re-evaluation ofthe occult. I as particularly excited by ilsons attempt to create a indof unified field theory encompassin maic and the paranormal perhaps

overexcited, because hen I intervieed him in 1973, havin drun toomuch of his red ine, I ore him out ith my enthusiastic recyclin ofhis ideas and he had a nervous collapse the next day.

By the mid-seventies, my on life as oin throuh some turbulentphases, and I as dran increasinly to explore the darer currents, tolo the unpacin of my Undermind in hat as becomin a maicaldiary. The orin-out culminated in The Ritual of the Stifling Air. Idencountered the phrase in Pauels and BeriresMorning of the Magicianshere they hinted that Himmlers SS conducted necromantic ceremonies

in the vaults of ebelsbur Castle. It says much for my state of mind atthis time that I found this idea really compellin. I invented a ceremonyfor a neo-Nazi maus, acolyte and clairvoyant. They ere attemptin tocontact the spirit of the Fuehrer.

The resultin poetic drama as amazinly broadcast on BBC Radio3 in 1977, ith music by my lontime collaborator Vincent Crane. Thecritics dislied it intensely, ith the exception of Paul Ferris in the Ob-server ho acnoleded the concentrated poer of the ritin. Thispoer as acnoleded in a different ay by the actors and techniciansho insisted there had been a very sinister atmosphere in the studio, ithpersistent noise and interference in the control room monitors.

My next broadcast play not included here as a straihtforardquasi-autobioraphical drama about the orld of pun roc, hich Idblundered into durin this period. It as as if Id side-stepped the issuesraised by my increasin involvement in the esoteric.

But questions ept hauntin me. Could e attain levels of realitybeyond the consensus of our current scientific paradims? as there


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a host in the machinery of our meat? Moreover some interpretationsof quantum physics alloed parallel universes, reversed-time causality,

action at a distance, or even shado matter. ere there interpenetra-tions ith the Qabalistic Sephiroth, Croleys Visions and Voices, or DrDees Enochian channellin? hence oriinated the entities of visionaryexperiences?

I rote my ay into this interzone beteen science and maic via anovel The Qliphothusin a rane of techniques to develop the narrative. Iexperimented ith cut-ups and automatic ritin, folloin Qabalisticcorrespondences as per Croleys 777, login the loic of dreams, lucid orotherise, as odd synchronicities floed around me, creatin a orin

method that is on-oin in the sequelBeneath the Pleasure Zones.I bean a novel about Croley, but as overhelmed by the sheer mass

of data. It as lie tryin to lasso a hale ith a piece of strin. Hoever,I conceived the notion of ritin a series of plays in hich Croley hov-ered lie a spectral presence in the lives of others Montaue Summers,Graham Bond and Jac Parsons.

I had wanted to write a play about Parsons the occult rocketeer sincelearnin about the traic arc of his career from Francis Kins Crowleybioraphy. But when I bean work in the late nineties, there were no

Parsons bioraphies. I drew on Michael Staleys excellent essay Belovedof Babalon, Shedona Chevaliers comprehensive Parsons website (nowdefunct), the online archives of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, RussellMillers bioraphy of L. Ron Hubbard,Barefaced Messiah, and of courseParsons ownBook of Babalonand Freedom is a Two Edged Sword, as well asother Crowley bioraphies and random leanins from the eb. It was, ofcourse, a speculative exploration of the Parsons myth, in all its para-doxes and the story line was subject to the compressions and elisions ofdramatic narrative in an audio medium. My submission to the BBC waschampioned by producer Ned Chaillet, who asked me to rewrite it for asmaller cast. This ave me the opportunity to add insihts ained fromJohn Carters Sex and Rockets. Althouh the BBC mysteriously rejected itat the final stae of the commissionin process (nervous perhaps aboutnot offendin the Scientoloists) it was discovered by Alison Rockbrandwho adapted it for a successful live performance with her Travesty Thea-tre roup in 2005.

Since then there has been more research into Parsons and the Baba-


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lon orin. Geore Pendle has ritten a ell-documented bioraphyStrange Angel, hile Spencer ansas ormwood Starinvestiates the life

of Parsons maical partner Marjorie Cameron. Parsons or has beenexplored in articles by Joel Birocco and Brian Butler, amon others, andhe is no a counter-cultural icon on the eb, lined to every cult con-spiracy from Operation Majestic to the Philadelphia Experiment. Thereare rumours of Hollyood movies in development, althouh the emphasismiht be more on the rocetry than the occultism.

My chronoloy has been speculative at some points. There are differinaccounts of Hubbards arrival at Aape Lode and Jacs first meetinith Cameron. I also folloed Frieda Harriss account of Croley dyin

perplexed. But the union of Beast and Babalon is at the core of Thelemaso I ave him a final Rosebud moment (as in Citizen ane). To quote JeanCocteau: Art lies in order to tell the truth.

Obviously both The Mouthpieceand The Magus of looks leekdeal iththe sonic maic of music. They could also be read as arnins aboutthe riss of the maical path, hether embared on by chance, as in TheMouthpieceor souht ith a recless lust for result, as in the traic saaof Graham Bond. I sa him several times in his sixties R & B phase, a biexuberant arloc of a man ith a Fu Manchu moustache ho played

manic Hammond oran and alto sax (sometimes simultaneously) andsan ith a voice lie burnin anthracite. As his involvement ith maicdeepened he released extraordinary albums lieHoly Magicand e PutOur Magic on You, here he roled the barbarous names of poer fromThelemic and Golden Dan rituals over the drone of deep fun oranand ailin horns.

In researchin the play I read Harry Shapiros bioraphy The MightyShadowand the late Dic Hecstall-Smiths autobioraphy The SafestPlace in the orld,but I also dre on friends and acquaintances ho hadencountered the man, hether on the bandstand or in Londons occultbooshops. I can never erase that final imae of Bond, havin reced hisfamily and career, mesmerised by his addictions and demons (real andorimained), lurchin toards death under a subay train.

Terminal Poetdepicts the poet as another ind of shambolic shaman.Charles ennin is cursed ith a ift that oes viral, and uprootslanuae from its anchorae in everyday interaction. The maical ordbattles beteen ennin and the street rappers and the hysterical


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lossalia that overcomes Dorins conreation as they spea in tonuesforeshado a semiotic collapse. As in The Dream Laboratorymalinant

aencies have attempted to manipulate an essentially maical phenom-enon for their on ends, yet it is their intervention that has spread thisBabel virus and initiated an apocalyptic social breadon.

Obo Cocteauposits a different sort of reality fracture, in the schismbeteen the protaonists personae as Tex the rocer and Roy Cocteauthe avant film maer. This project, ith its homae to Jean Cocteaus filmThe Blood of a Poet, as very much a Third Mind operation, for La-rence Russells oriinal short story developed a hole ne identity as eexchaned drafts across the Atlantic. Our imainary Saharan city-state of

Obo, ith its ex-pat culture of movie shoots and niht-clubs menaced byIslamist uerrillas, has parallels ith todays media landscape. But as Tex,entranced by the beauty of Naomi, is immersed in the orld of Cocteausmovie the boundaries beteen fantasy and reality blur until the dream isshattered by violence.

Astral FM, lie The Mouthpiece, is a monoloue. But hereas embitteredsaxophonist Joe Cameron is a very physical presence, an Ancient Marinerof the sixties counter-culture desperate to share his story of the maicAtlantean mouthpiece, the anonymous DJis a disembodied entity, a com-

posite of dead radio voices that drift across the liht years to the stars.He evoes himself into existence throuh the connotations and memo-ries encoded into the framents of music he plays. The seed for this asprobably the Friday midniht slot I held decades ao as Brother Saul onCBU-FMVancouver 50,000 atts of soul from the Arctic Circle to the49th Parallel cracly late-niht radio of a mystery voice constructinits identity from the mystique of old records, a secular shomanshamanho only existed momentarily behind the rill of a radio speaer.

I too a less oblique approach to the mysteries of survival in The VoiceCollection.The play is to some extent a homae to Niel neale ( TheStone Tape, uatermass and the Pit) and develops the necromantic themefromRitual of the Stifling Air. Theres also a debt to Becettsrapps LastTapein hich rapp reinds and revies his audio diary of a lon-lostand doomed affair. My on research into the Electronic Voice Phenom-enon has proved inconclusive yet the enima fascinates me. Thomas isconvinced that he has heard dead Gillians voice via his special mixer and as listeners e hear it too but it isnt audible on replay to Rosemary.


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Lie so many ESPphenomena it ill not repeat itself in a laboratory situ-ation. Moreover, he has repressed the nolede that her death in a frea

electrical accident as caused indirectly by his on obsessive jealousy.The Voice Collector is trapped.

After my fathers death I rediscovered the three letters hed receivedfrom Montaue Summers. This reneed my obsession ith this curiousfiure hose inquisitorial denunciations of itchcraft almost certainlyconcealed a deep fascination ith it. The question of his ordination asa priest in the Catholic Church has been much debated his status ascertainly irreular. He played a prominent part in Londons theatricalcircles in the 1920s and after a period of school-teachin (and ith the

support of a private income) he concentrated on ritin after the successof his first boo on itchcraft in 1926. He as ay and as involved ithroups lie the Society for Sexual Psycholoy that promoted ay culture.

He attended my alma mater Trinity Collee, Oxford, here he appar-ently adopted the pose of decadent 90s aesthete but his sinature in thecollee reister as the only trace of him in the archives. The one slimbioraphy by Joseph Jerome aa Father Brocard Seell dells on his pietyand his scholarship as an editor of Restoration drama hile Summersautobioraphy The Galanty Showconsists mostly of literary and theatrical

reminiscences. He as supposedly plannin a second volume about hissupernatural interests but many of his papers ere lost after his death.Some have no surfaced over sixty years later in the USAbut there is nosin yet of this elusive document. Croleys death ould have certainlyprompted him to reflect on his on past. They met on several occasionsand rumours circulated about occult activities in his earlier career,includin a Blac Mass in 1918 althouh Croley as not involved inthis episode. Summers as also arrested for alleed offences aainst choir-boys in 1908 but as acquitted. Records of the case are apparently lost.Charles Cammell as a mutual friend of Summers and Croley and sub-sequently rote a bioraphy of 666 published in 1951, in hich he recalledtheir shared love of literature and recounted ho their friendship endedover a lady and a sum of money a debt oed to his ife Iona. renneJarman, a journalist and poet ho lived in Richmond in the 1940s, aspart of Cammells circle. A devout Catholic, she nevertheless enjoyed var-ious passionate adulteries. e dont no hether she had a liaison ithCroley but he apparently made a very poerful impression on her.


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In a sense there are no last ords. The rope for Gnosis continues. Toquote 666: I have made matter and motion for my mirror. I have decreed

for my deliht that Nothinness shall fiure itself as tain, that I mihtdream a dance of names and enjoy the substance of simplicity to atchthe anderins of my shados.

Special thans to all those hove iven help and encouraement invarious ays, notably Pete Bron, Ned Chaillet, Jean Cheesman, EmmaDoeve, Clare Hopins, Neil Hornic, Mav uhn, Adrian Lord, AidanMatthes, Mog Moran, Christina Oaley Harrinton, Ciya OLeary,Peter Philpott, Alison Rocbrand, Mie Rolfe, Larence Russell, JanineSharp, Matthe Levi Stevens, Alyne de inter, Dave ood, Lance

oodman, J. Michael Yates.And above all, thans to Cathy, my ife and companion for over thirty

years.

Paul A. Green

2nd February 2015

babalon afterwords green

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