Babalon Working
The Babalon Working was a series of magic ceremonies performed from January to March 1946 by author, pioneer rocket-fuel scientist and occultist Jack Parsons and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.
This ritual was essentially designed to manifest an individual incarnation of Babalon. The rituals performed drew largely upon sex magic described by English author and occult teacher Aleister Crowley. Crowley was in correspondence with Parsons during the course of the Babalon Working, and warned Parsons of his potential overreactions to the magic he was performing, while simultaneously deriding Parsons' work to others.
Background
After leaving JPL and starting his own company, Jack Parsons purchased a house in Pasadena commonly called "the Parsonage" where he conducted experiments in both rocketry and in ritual magic.
In 1945, science fiction writer and U.S. Navy officer L. Ron Hubbard moved into the Parsonage, and he and Parsons became close friends. Parsons and his wife Sara were in an open relationship encouraged by the Ordo Templi Orientis's polyamorous sexual ethics, and she became enamored with Hubbard; Parsons, despite attempting to repress his passions, became intensely jealous.
Motivated to find a new partner through occult means, Parsons began to devote his energies to conducting black magic, causing concern among fellow O.T.O. members who believed that he was invoking troublesome spirits into the Parsonage. Parsons reported paranormal events in the house resulting from these invocations; including poltergeist activity, sightings of orbs and ghostly apparitions, alchemical effects on the weather, and disembodied voices.
First phase of the Working
In December 1945, Parsons began a series of rituals based on Enochian magic during which he masturbated onto magical tablets, accompanied by Sergei Prokofiev's Second Violin Concerto. Describing this magical operation as the Babalon Working, he hoped to bring about the incarnation of Thelemite goddess Babalon onto Earth. He allowed Hubbard to take part as his "scribe," believing that he was particularly sensitive to detecting magical phenomena.
Their final ritual took place in the Mojave Desert in late February 1946, during which Parsons abruptly decided that his undertaking was complete. On returning to the Parsonage, he discovered that Marjorie Cameron (an unemployed illustrator and former Navy WAVE) had come to visit. Believing her to be the "elemental" woman and manifestation of Babalon that he had invoked, in early March Parsons began performing sex magic rituals with Cameron, who acted as his "Scarlet Woman," while Hubbard continued to participate as the assistant.
Unlike the rest of the household, Cameron knew nothing at first of Parsons' magical intentions: "I didn't know anything about the O.T.O., I didn't know that they had invoked me, I didn't know anything, but the whole house knew it. Everybody was watching to see what was going on." Despite this ignorance and her skepticism about Parsons' magic, Cameron reported her sighting of a UFO to Parsons, who secretly recorded the sighting as a materialization of Babalon.
Second phase of the Working
Inspired by Crowley's novel Moonchild (1917), Parsons and Hubbard aimed to magically fertilize a "magical child" through Immaculate Conception, which when born to a woman somewhere on Earth nine months following the working's completion would become the Thelemic messiah embodying Babalon.
To quote Metzger, the purpose of the Babalon Working was "a daring attempt to shatter the boundaries of space and time" facilitating, according to Parsons, the emergence of Thelema's Æon of Horus.
When Cameron departed for a trip to New York, Parsons retreated to the desert, where he believed that a preternatural entity psychographically provided him with Liber 49, which represented a fourth part of Crowley's The Book of the Law, the primary sacred text of Thelema, as well as part of a new sacred text he called the Book of Babalon. Crowley was bewildered and concerned by the endeavor, complaining to Germer of being "fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts!"
After the conclusion of this ritual in the desert, believing the Babalon Working was accomplished, Parsons sold the Parsonage to developers for $25,000 under the condition that he and Cameron could continue to live in the coach house.
Liber 49, The Book of Babalon
A brief text entitled Liber 49, self-referenced within the text as The Book of Babalon, was written by Jack Parsons as a transmission from the goddess Babalon received by him during the Babalon Working. Parsons wrote that Liber 49 constituted a fourth chapter of Crowley's Liber AL Vel Legis (The Book of the Law), the holy text of Thelema.