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
