Below I share my final paper from a class last semester. My final grade was 93. I could wish it was higher, but really, what could be more perfect?
Lately I’ve been saying that Thelema is Satanic, or at least that Crowley intended it to be so (although do what thou wilt, obvs). This paper may shed light on my argument and sources.
MYSTERY BABALON: CROWLEY AND THE “WOMAN OF WHOREDOM”
by Antichristos
In his book Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic Thomas Karlsson makes a bold assertion: that Crowley’s Babalon is identical with the Jewish demoness Eisheth Zenunim, also known as Lilith the Elder.[1] This was the first time I had seen anyone else make a connection between Babalon and Eisheth Zenunim, a connection I had long been trying to prove. Despite the massive potential ramifications of this assertion, Karlsson makes the statement as a throwaway, citing only a single, inconclusive text in its support: namely, a brief paragraph in The Kabbalah Unveiled by S.L. Mathers.[2] However, these tiny breadcrumbs dropped by Karlsson and Mathers revealed a hidden path of research, seemingly almost completely untrodden, which I have followed to its conclusion. At its end, I have found Babalon unveiled, and the face behind the face is indeed that of Eisheth Zenunim, whose name means Wife of Harlotry, and who is the twin and consort of Samael, the Devil. This discovery reveals that the Satanic and klipotic currents in Thelema are stronger and more foundational than the contemporary Ordo Templi Orientis would perhaps like to acknowledge.
Before I begin, I would like to make a few notes on my perspective and methodology. As a theistic Satanist, ceremonial magician and priest of Lucifer, I write from a profoundly emic standpoint. I consider myself to have a personal relationship with Eisheth Zenunim, as well as several of the other demons who will be discussed. I also base my personal theology strongly on the “Tree of Death” or “Tree of Knowledge,” the inverse of the Kabbalistic “Tree of Life.” My understanding of this “Tree” will be crucial to this paper. My biases are obvious. In my defense, I formed my beliefs through the study of the very materials that are referenced herein. As a Luciferian who strongly values knowledge and critical thought as a matter of religious conviction, it is inevitable that my spiritual formation should dovetail with my academic formation. I flatter myself that my beliefs are informed by my studies at least as much as my studies are informed by my beliefs. Furthermore, if not for my idiosyncratic esoteric interests, I would never have made the connections that I outline below. Very few practitioners are aware of Eisheth Zenunim, and those who are tend to conflate her with the younger Lilith (as will be discussed). An interest in the Tree of Klipot is practically a pre-requisite for discovering her existence at all. Klipotic work is a niche within a niche, an obscure and esoteric corner of the already understudied field of Satanism. This being the case, it is highly unlikely that etic scholars will concern themselves with it any time soon.
As to methodology, this paper is essentially an attempt to retrace Crowley’s steps. I have read some of what he has written on these topics (due to time constraints and Crowley’s prolific output I don’t dare claim to have read more than ‘some’), but I am also trying to read what he read. I believe that Crowley must have been familiar with a certain passage of the Zohar, and that this passage is the key to understanding Babalon, her nature, and her iconography.
I am also unavoidably influenced by Kabbalistic methods of textual interpretation, specifically the PARDES system, and the connections that can be made via games of sephirotic and klipotic attribution. This may cause my paper to seemingly veer between the academic and the mystical; but in all fairness, Crowley employed these methods extensively himself, and familiarity with them is essential to understanding his logic.
A case in point: in his introduction to The Eye in the Triangle by Israel Regardie, Robert Anton Wilson recounts an elaborate Kabbalistic joke that Crowley made at his own expense. In The Book of Lies, Crowley referred to Frater Perdurabo (himself) as “nothing but an EYE.” An excursion through the footnotes leads to the Kabbalistic tables in Liber 777, which eventually reveal that by “eye” he means the Eye of Hoor, and that the Eye of Hoor refers to the anus.[3] Aside from being quite funny, this anecdote exemplifies the sort of intertextual Easter-egg hunts that are necessary to understand Crowley. My research for this paper has followed a very similar trajectory, from text to footnotes to the tables of 777, to a much more illuminating conclusion.
With questions of prejudice and methodology acknowledged, I think it best to introduce our twin Goddesses, Babalon and Eisheth Zenunim, before attempting to demonstrate their identity with one another. Without first defining each of them as individuals, the implications of their entanglement cannot be appreciated.
Babalon is the most central and most notorious of all the Goddesses of Thelema. At first glance, she is seemingly drawn from a single, exoteric source: The Book of Revelations. The text describing the Great Whore of the apocalypse is brief but rich in symbolism: she rides on a beast “having seven heads and ten horns,”[4] she is “drunken with the blood of saints,”[5] and is “arrayed in purple and scarlet.”[6] The text of Revelations goes on to explain that the vision of the Great Whore represents a “great city,”[7] Babylon (itself most likely an allegory for Rome). Crowley takes the exoteric meaning and makes it esoteric, rendering pshat into sod as it were, by literalizing Babylon still further, making her not a city, but a goddess and a personality.
As rich as the text of Revelations is, and neat as this rhetorical trick of Crowley’s may be, Crowley being Crowley could never have been satisfied with drawing on a single source for something so lofty as his construction of the divine feminine—especially not a source so quotidian as the Bible! After all, he was the Great Beast, destined for spiritual union with the Great Whore. She could not remain a sketch, she had to be given flesh. In imagining Babalon, Crowley probably drew from many sources and inspirations, but we know that one of them was Kabbalah. He attributes her to the sephira of Binah,[8] which is “understanding” and is generally considered the first emanation of the divine feminine. We also know that he drew upon the work of John Dee while constructing Babalon. The unique spelling of her name is inspired by Enochian wordplay—Babalon means “wicked” in Enochian, and Babalond means “harlot.”[9] The spelling “Babalon” was allegedly revealed to Crowley during his Kabbalistic/Enochian workings with Victor Neuberg, as documented in The Vision and the Voice. In a footnote, Crowley breaks down the name Babalon still further to mean “gates of God,”[10] referring to her position as Binah directly on the other side of the Abyss, and thus as the entrance to the supernal triangle of Binah, Chokmah and Keter.
We will return to Babalon shortly, but now we must introduce our other principle character, Eisheth Zenunim. She is introduced memorably in the Zohar as “a serpent,” a “wife of harlotry,” “the End of All Flesh” and “the end of days.” The Zohar tells us also that:
“A deep mystery is found in the strength of Isaac’s light OF HOLINESS, and from the dregs of wine, WHICH ARE KLIPOT. One shape emerged FROM BOTH, made of GOOD AND EVIL, male and female, as one. It is red as a rose and extends to many sides and paths, HAVING MANY ASPECTS. The male is called ‘Samael’ and the female is always included within him.”[11]
From this we can see that Eisheth Zenunim and Samael are in fact a single entity or principle. They are created as one, androgynous and co-equal. Further text makes it explicit that what is being described is a dark mirror of divinity: just as God emanates in male and female aspects through the Tree of Life, the principles that oppose him on the sitra achra (other side) emanate likewise through the Tree of Death.
Isaac Luria is thought to have been first to propose an “inverse tree” of klipot[12] that precisely mirror the sephiroth, and western esotericists, particularly of the Golden Dawn, expanded upon his system. In the layout of this inverse tree, Eisheth Zenunim, first emanation of the infernal feminine, resides in Satarial, the klipotic equivalent of Binah—occupying the same space as Babalon, but on the sitra achra.[13]
Anybody who has even a passing familiarity with Jewish demonology and the left-hand path should be wondering at this point if Eisheth Zenunim is the same as Lilith. In answer: she is and she isn’t. Eisheth Zenunim is a primeval Lilith, who must be distinguished from Lilith, first wife of Adam. While that Lilith was created co-equal with Adam from the same dust as he, as seen in the Alphabet of Ben Sirach,[14] Eisheth Zenunim is older, made from the same stuff as Samael. She is the twin of the Devil himself, or perhaps more accurately, the female half of Satan or the Beast. She is Binah to Samael’s Chokmah (or more precisely, Satarial to his Ghogiel). They are united in the dark side of Keter, which is called Thaumiel or “Twins of God.”[15] This klipa represents cosmic duality and individuation, whereas Keter represents unity and subordination in the oneness of God. Meanwhile, Adam’s ex-wife Lilith rules the lower klipa of Gamaliel, which is equivalent to the sephira Yesod.[16] Some left-hand path practitioners, taking their cue from Rabbi ha-Kohen, distinguish between these two as Lilith the Elder and Lilith the Younger, or Lilith the Matron and Lilith the Maiden.[17] For our purposes we shall refer to the elder as Eisheth Zenunim and the younger as Lilith, simply because the younger lacks a convenient alternate appellation.
Speaking of Rabbi ha-Kohen, an origin story for Eisheth Zenunim is found in his “Treatise on the Left Emanation.” Rabbi ha-Kohen describes Eisheth Zenunim/the elder Lilith as the cause of the war in heaven and the rebellion of the angels. He states that, like Adam and Eve, Samael and Lilith were born as one. He distinguishes between the elder and younger Lilith, as aforementioned, and refers to Eisheth Zenunim as Lilith the Matron, Eve the Matron, and “the Northern One.” He credits her and the war she incited with causing the partial collapse of the “throne of glory.”[18] This could be a reference to the fall of the pseudo-sephira Daath into the Abyss—the “throne of glory” may be construed as Tiphereth, which once would have been in the empty space where Daath is now hidden. Yesod would have been in the place of Tiphereth, and Malkuth in the place of Yesod. Some believe this is the original perfect, symmetrical and unfallen state of the Tree of Life.[19] Since Eisheth Zenunim is also called a “serpent” and is Kabbalistically considered the snake of Eden, this would make her almost single-handedly responsible for every fall: the fall of the angels, the fall of man, and the fall of Malkuth away from the rest of the sephiroth. In other words, Eisheth Zenunim is the primordial catalyst of rebellion and upheaval.
Now that we have established the separate identities of Babalon and Eisheth Zenunim, we may begin to consider the connections between them, and even the possibility that these two are one. To do this, we must first return to the Zohar. Here Eisheth Zenunim is described in terms which must seem familiar to anyone who has read Revelations. As mentioned before, she is called the “End of all Flesh” and the “end of days,” an easy parallel with the whore of the apocalypse. She is described as clad in purple and richly bejeweled, with red hair and a beautiful face. “On her neck hang all the powers of Eastern lands… her speech as smooth as oil; and her lips as beautiful and red as a rose… she is sweeter than all that is sweet in the world.” She is described, like Babylon the Great, as seducing men with wine and fornication. Like Babylon, she is a richly adorned harlot bedazzled with the attributes of sovereignty, wielding the power to bring men and nations to their knees. And like Babylon in Revelations, she brings destruction in her wake: once she has lulled her victim into sleep with wine and rutting, she takes off her ornaments, clothes herself in flames, and returns wielding an envenomed sword with which to end his life.[20]
There are many echoes of this passage in Crowley’s writing about Babalon, particularly in The Vision and the Voice. This was a mystical odyssey of epic proportions, in which Crowley traveled through the Enochian Aethyrs (and the sephiroth as well) in his quest to cross the Abyss (Daath) and attain the grade of Magus through spiritual/sexual union with Babalon. Crowley’s experiences often seemed to flicker between the light and dark sides of the tree, between sephiroth and klipot, demonic and divine. Demonic experiences seem to have increased rather than decreased during his ascent. Crowley himself implied that dualities such as “divine” and “infernal” had lost meaning for him after he crossed the Abyss.[21]
Babalon perfectly embodies that flickering duality. Like the Bible’s Babylon, she has her chalice filled with the blood of the saints, but she also has many attributes not mentioned in the Bible. Of these, red roses are prominent—indeed, the rose of the rosy-cross itself symbolizes Babalon to Crowley. While the Babylon of Revelations carries no roses, the Zohar’s Eisheth Zenunim is heavily associated with the flower. Her lips and hair are both called “red as a rose.” Indeed, in the same portion, the Tree of Klipot itself is described thus: “It is red as a rose and extends to many sides and paths, HAVING MANY ASPECTS.”[22] This image is strongly reminiscent of some of Crowley’s visions, particularly in the 15th Aethyr: “Now it is clear what she has woven in her dance; it is the Crimson Rose of 49 Petals, and the Pillars are the Cross with which it is conjoined. And between the pillars shoot out rays of pure green fire; and now all the pillars are golden.”[23]
Yet even more striking is Babalon’s “vesture of flame.” While the comparison of a woman or goddess to a red rose is facile and springs swiftly the mind of the most amateur poet, the idea of a dress made of fire takes a bit more imagination. The Babylon of Revelations does not wear one, but Eisheth Zenunim certainly does. In an interesting inversion, Crowley’s Babalon gathers up “every soul that is pure” into her burning garment, while Eisheth Zenunim clothes herself in fire in order to reap the souls of fools and the impure. But inversions and counter-readings were certainly not beyond Crowley, who, after all, had essentially turned the villains of Revelations into heroes.
The most important attribute that Babalon seems to borrow from Eisheth Zenunim is her sword. “Girt with a sword,” Babalon becomes phallically empowered. The blade of Eisheth Zenunim is even more suggestive, dripping “bitter drops” of venom as if oozing sexual fluid. This is not the only respect in which Eisheth Zenunim represents the phallic feminine—she is also the serpent of Eden. Furthermore, in the Kabbalistic text Emek HaMelekh (“Valley of the King”) of Naftali Hertz ben Yaakov Elchanan, Samael is described as castrated, and Lilith/Eisheth Zenunim is said to be in possession of a “blind serpent” which enables their coupling.[24] Make of that what you will.
This could all be coincidence, I suppose. However, the case is strengthened when one examines the sephirotic and klipotic attributions of Babalon and of Eisheth Zenunim. Crowley attributes Babalon to the sephira of Binah. Eisheth Zenunim is attributed to the equivalent klipa, that of Satarial. Carrying this game of attributions further, we see that Chaos is attributed to Chokmah and The Beast to Keter. Meanwhile, Samael rules Ghogiel, and Satan rules Thaumiel, the equivalent klipot of Chokmah and Keter respectively. Thus Babalon and Chaos join to become the androgynous Beast, or Baphomet, the highest of emanations, the crown. Similarly, Eisheth Zenunim and Samael, in their sexual union, become Satan or Baphomet. In each of these cases, we see the divine androgyne emanating down into masculine and feminine aspects, and being reformed again in their sexual coupling.
Understanding these Kabbalistic attributions also helps to explain the odd episode of Chaos’ incest with his daughter in the 4th Aethyr. If Chaos and Babalon are coequal, emanated from the Beast, they are essentially born from each other. Babalon would be both mother and daughter to Chaos. Alternatively, one could look upon the daughter as Lilith the Younger, and Babalon as Lilith the Elder, Eisheth Zenunim. Indeed, in a footnote on the 3rd Aethyr, Crowley says: “Here also is a mystery of mysteries. Lilith is truly Babalon.” In the prior footnote he attributes Lilith to Malkuth, and in the next footnote connects Babalon to Binah.[25] This fits perfectly into the traditional Kabbalistic schema wherein Malkuth is a lower reflection of the divine feminine Binah. All of this makes even more sense if Chaos is accepted to be Samael, for Samael copulates with both Eisheth Zenunim, Lilith the Matron, who is Binah/Satarial, and with Lilith the Maiden, who is attributed to Yesod or to Malkuth (or rather their klipotic equivalents, Gamaliel and Nahemoth).
One might defend Babalon, Chaos and even the Beast from charges of deviltry by pointing out that they reside on the tree of the sephiroth, not the tree of the klipot. However, as Crowley intimated, the light and dark sides had become undifferentiated for him once he crossed the Abyss. He also makes this remark in the 3rd Aethyr:
“It is only in the first three Aethyrs that we find the pure essence, for all the other Aethyrs are but as Malkuth to complete these three triads, as hath before been said. And this being the second reflection, therefore is it the palace of two hundred and eighty judgments. For all these paths are in the course of the Flaming Sword from the side of Severity.”
According to some traditions, all the klipot originally emanated out of the sephira of Gevurah (Severity) on the left side of the Tree of Life[26] (which is why the sitra achra is sometimes called the “left emanation”). Arguably, Crowley has here admitted that he has crossed to the left side!
Furthermore, there exists an additional Thelemic-Kabbalistic trinity which seems much more firmly aligned with the sephira and the light—that of Nuit as Binah, Hadit as Chokmah, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit as Keter. Thus, one could argue that the sephirotic version of the triad is Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, and that Babalon, Chaos and the Beast are their klipotic equivalents, bringing them one step closer to explicit identification with Eisheth Zenunim, Samael, and Satan.
This would be interesting enough as a Kabbalistic game, however, I happen to have some textual evidence that Crowley himself connected Babalon with Eisheth Zenunim. In the first place, it would be odd to think that Crowley had never seen the above passage of the Zohar. He studied Kabbalah extensively. Further increasing the likelihood that Crowley had been exposed to the figure of Eisheth Zenunim, we have his mentor Samuel Liddell Mathers to thank for this passage in The Kabbalah Unveiled:
“Their prince is Samael, SMAL, the angel of poison and of death. His wife is the harlot, or woman of whoredom, AShTh ZNVNIM, Isheth Zenunim; and united they are called the beast, CHIVA, Chioa. Thus the infernal trinity is completed, which is, so to speak, the averse and caricature of the supernal Creative One. Samael is considered to be identical with Satan.”[27]
Here we have a klipotic triad that functions in precisely the same way as Chaos, Babalon and the Beast, and it even has a Beast at the top. It would be preposterous to think that Crowley was never exposed to this passage. Any reference to a “Beast” would have surely caught his eye, as he had identified with the Beast of Revelations since childhood.[28] Additionally, at the time when Crowley was hobnobbing most with Mathers, he was “meddling with the Goetia” (in the words of Allan Bennett).[29] Of course he would’ve given the brief segment on demonology in his mentor’s book more than a passing glance! The Kabbalah Unveiled was published in 1887, and Crowley joined the Golden Dawn in 1898, more than ten years later. He had ample time to read The Kabbalah Unveiled, and in fact quoted it extensively in his own Kabbalistic writings, chiefly Gematria[30]. He also included it in the curriculum for the A.A.
(Playing with gematria, I noticed that Mather’s spelling, AShTh ZNVNIM, has a numerical sum of 154, only two less than the value of Babalon. If one adds a couple of A’s for the missing vowels, AShaTh ZaNVNIM, it can be made to add to 156. This is a heinous misspelling in the name of numerology, but Crowley was far from being above such linguistic mutilations. I don’t think it’s too far-fetched to speculate that he would have noticed this.)
A table in Liber 777 further proves that Crowley was perfectly familiar with Eisheth Zenunim. In English, he attributes Thaumiel as “Satan and Moloch,” which is how Mathers and the Golden Dawn understood Thaumiel. But Crowley includes Hebrew characters below, and they do not translate as Moloch. אשת זנונים is “wife of harlotry,” Eisheth Zenunim.[31] Why this bait and switch? It would be tempting to assume that Crowley wanted to keep his Satanic influences esoteric, but this would seem odd for a man who called himself “The Great Beast 666.”
We have firmly established that Crowley was aware of the mostly forgotten demon goddess Eisheth Zenunim, but we have not yet shown he identified her with Babalon. Proof of this does exist, however, and to find it we must turn to Liber Samekh. In this ritual he addresses Babalon as “BABALON-BAL-BIN-ABAFT,” which he translates to “Babalon! Thou Woman of Whoredom.” “Woman of Whoredom” is, of course, a direct translation of Eisheth Zenunim. There is no chance that this is accidental.[32]
Our case is very strong, but we must make it stronger yet, and I believe we can. To truly, forcefully identify Babalon with Eisheth Zenunim, it is crucial that we establish Chaos/Hadit as Samael/Lucifer. Eisheth Zenunim and Samael were created as one, after all, and reunite as Thaumiel/Baphomet/Satan. It is impossible for one to be present without the other.
It turns out that establishing the Satanic identity of Chaos/Hadit is a simple task. Crowley was not the least bit shy about it. Liber Samekh, the same text which gives us our most positive identification of Eisheth Zenunim with Babalon, presents us with rich and explicit evidence for Hadit/Chaos as Satan. Here are just a few lines:
“O Lion-Serpent Sun,
The Beast that whirlest forth, a thunder-bolt, begetter of Life!
Thou that flowest! Thou that goest!
Thou Satan-Sun Hadith that goest without Will!”
The name Satan appears in the ritual a total of eight times, each time repeated with reverent love and adoration. Additionally, there are many other references to the Devil in Liber Samekh as the lion-serpent, as the goat, the sun, the snake, and Hadit.[33]
If we use Liber Samekh to intertextually examine the Creed of the Gnostic Mass, we find that “Chaos” is identified as the “Father of Life,” and “the sole viceregent of the Sun upon Earth.” Baphomet is called “the Serpent and the Lion.”[34] Is the Satan of Liber Samekh then Chaos or Baphomet? Kabbalistically, of course, he is both—and Babalon to boot! If one understands how supernal triads work, then the blurring of the one into the other is not the least bit surprising.
The Biblical references in these passages are obviously Satanic, but are worth briefly exploring for additional emphasis. Satan falls “like a lightning-bolt from Heaven,”[35] he walks about as a “roaring lion,”[36] and as for the serpent, this is clearly the serpent of Genesis 3 and of Revelations. The goat is the goat of Azazel.[37]
Further on in Liber Samekh, we see Babalon addressed thus: “Hail, sister and bride of ON, of the God that is all and is none, by the Power of Eleven!”[38] We have already discussed how Eisheth Zenunim is both twin and consort of Samael. The key thing to focus on now is the number eleven. Crowley makes much of these digits: The Book of Lies states “Eleven is the great number of Magick.”[39] Yet how can this be, since ten is the number of the sephiroth? The answer is that while the sephiroth are ten, the klipot are eleven—either because Daath is counted among them, or because Thaumiel counts as two rather than one. This is more evidence that Crowley’s supernal triangle is klipotic, not sephirotic, in nature.
Crowley himself was not shy about the Satanic elements of his religion. They are absolutely exoteric. Crowley presented openly as the Great Beast 666, explicitly identifying himself with the Antichrist. He received The Book of the Law from Aiwass, which is another name for Melek Taus, the Peacock Angel of the Yazidis, yet another name for whom is Azazel. In “Magic in Theory and Practice” Crowley makes no bones about Aiwass’ identity:
“The Devil” is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to proclaim simply that AIWAZ, the solar-phallic-hermetic “Lucifer” is His own Holy Guardian Angel, and “The Devil” SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of the Starry Universe.[40]
In conclusion, we are left with this question to ponder: since Crowley was willing to be open about the diabolical nature of Chaos/Hadit, why might he have been so relatively cagey about the demoness behind Babalon? After all, Babalon is already the whore of the apocalypse, a reviled villainess in The Book of Revelations. What could Crowley possibly have had to lose by making her demonic provenance fully exoteric? Why would he hide Eisheth Zenunim’s name in Liber 777, writing “Moloch” in English and allowing the demoness to be found only by those who could read Hebrew?
I cannot give a definitive answer to this question. I can, however, speculate. Crowley may have felt a certain degree of possessiveness towards Babalon. After all, he had to cross the Abyss and battle Choronzon in order to know her embrace. While he seems to have enjoyed revealing his own identification with the Beast, he may have been understandably protective towards his mystical consort and beloved. The klipa over which Eisheth Zenunim presides, Satarial, is known as “the veiled ones” or “the concealment of God.” Perhaps Crowley simply respected his beloved Goddess far too much to pull her veil and show her true face.
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Apiryon, Helena, and Tau Apiryon. “The Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Church: An Examination.” Hermetic.com. Accessed May 13, 2019.
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Crowley, Aleister. “11: The Glow Worm.” In The Book of Lies, 1. N.p.: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net, n.d.
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/crowley/lies/14.htm.
Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography. 5th ed. N.p.: Penguin, 1989.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber 777. The Esoteric Library,
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Crowley, Aleister. Magick in Theory and Practice. Paris: Lecram Press, 1930.
Crowley, Aleister. The Vision and the Voice. Sacred-Texts.com,
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Ha-Kohen, Rabbi Isaac Ben Jacob, and Dan. “Treatise on the Left Emanation.” In The Early Kabbalah, edited by Joseph Dan. Translated by Ronald C. Kiener, 173. New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1986.
Karlsson, Thomas. Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic. Jacksonville, OR: Ajna, 2009.
Mathers, Samuel Liddell MacGregor. The Kabbalah Unveiled. Leeds, England: Celephais Press, 2003.
Regardie, Israel, Robert Anton Wilson, and Christopher S. Hyatt. The Eye in the Triangle. 2nd ed. Tempe, AZ: First Falcon Press Printing, 2013.
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[1] Karlsson Thomas, Qabalah, Qliphoth and Goetic Magic (Jacksonville, OR: Ajna, 2009), 69.
[2] Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, The Kabbalah Unveiled (Leeds, England: Celephais Press, 2003), 30.
[3] Israel Regardie, Robert Anton Wilson, and Christopher S. Hyatt, The Eye in the Triangle, 2nd ed. (Tempe, AZ: First Falcon Press Printing, 2013), 14-15.
[4] Revelation 17:3 (KJV)
[5] Revelation 17:6 (KJV)
[6] Revelation 17:4 (KJV)
[7] Revelation 17:18 (KJV)
[8] Aleister Crowley, Liber 777 (n.p.: The Esoteric Library, n.d.), 12,
https://www.ordoaa.com.br/arquivos/ht/libri/Liber_777.pdf.
[9] Thelemapedia, s.v. “Babalon,” accessed May 13, 2019,
http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Babalon#Etymology.
[10] Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice (Sacred-Texts.com), 12 Aethyr
https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/418/aetyr12.htm.
[11] “Samael and the Wife of Harlotry,” Zohar.com, accessed May 13, 2019, http://www.zohar.com/vayetze/samael-and-wife-harlotry.
[12] Gershom Scholem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken Books, 1995), 267.
[13] Crowley, Liber 777, 23.
[14] “Alphabet of Ben Sira 78: Lilith,” Jewish Women’s Archive, accessed May 13, 2019, https://jwa.org/media/alphabet-of-ben-sira-78-lilith.
[15] Karlsson, 136
[16] Karlsson, 116
[17] Rabbi Isaac Ben Jacob Ha-Kohen, “Treatise on the Left Emanation,” in The Early Kabbalah, ed. Joseph Dan, trans. Ronald C. Kiener (New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1986), 175.
[18] Ha-Kohen, 173.
[19] Karlsson, 39-43
[20] “Samael and the Wife of Harlotry,” Zohar.com
[21] Crowley, The Vision and the Voice, 5th Aethyr
[22] “Samael and the Wife of Harlotry,” Zohar.com
[23] Crowley, The Vision and the Voice, 15th Aethyr
[24] “Kabbala: Lilith, Samael and Blindragon,” jewishchristianlit.com, accessed May 13, 2019,
http://jewishchristianlit.com/Topics/Lilith/lilsam.html.
Unfortunately, it is nearly impossible to access even portions of this text in English and this site was the only source available under my time constraints.
[25] Crowley, The Vision and the Voice, 3rd Aethyr
[26] Karlsson, 54-58
[27] Mathers, The Kabbalah Unveiled, 30
[28] Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography, 5th ed. (Penguin, 1989), 44.
[29] Crowley, The Confessions, 178.
[30] wikipedia, s.v. “777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley,” accessed May 13, 2019, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/777_and_Other_Qabalistic_Writings_of_Aleister_Crowley#Gematria.
[31] Crowley, Liber 777, 23.
[32] Aleister Crowley, “Liber Samekh,” in Magick in Theory and Practice (Paris: Lecram Press, 1930), 248.
[33] Crowley, “Liber Samekh,” 247.
[34] Helena Apiryon and Tau Apiryon, “The Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Church: An Examination,” Hermetic.com, accessed May 13, 2019, https://hermetic.com/sabazius/creed_egc.
[35] Luke 10:18 (KJV)
[36] Peter 5:8 (KJV)
[37] Leviticus 16:8 (KJV)
[38] Crowley, “Liber Samekh,” 248.
[39] Aleister Crowley, “11: The Glow Worm,” in The Book of Lies (n.p.: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net, n.d.), 1, https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/crowley/lies/14.htm.
[40] Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice, 172.
Church of the Morningstar 