A VERY BASIC GUIDE

to
DEVOTIONAL WORK
with the

GODDESS BABALON

TEMPLE OF OUR LADY

OF THE ABYSS
 CONTENTS

Who is Our Lady of the Abyss? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

What is the Nature of Her Work? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

General Guidance for Babalon Devotion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Building a Relationship with the Goddess
Seven Exercises in Self-Examination
Four Exercises in Devotion

Mediations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The Cave Meditation (Create-Your-Own Fantasy)
The Hermit Crab (Crustacean Meditation)

The Equinox of the Bees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Introductory Reading List . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

 WHO IS OUR LADY OF THE ABYSS?

Chapter 17 of the Biblical Book of Revelation describes a vision of Babylon, the Great Harlot who Rides Upon
the Beast:

One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the punishment
of the great prostitute, who sits by many waters. With her the kings of the earth committed adultery, and the
inhabitants of the earth were intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” Then the angel carried me away in
the Spirit into a wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that was covered with blasphemous
names and had seven heads and ten horns. The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and was glittering
with gold, precious stones and pearls. She held a golden cup in her hand, filled with abominable things and the
filth of her adulteries. The name written on her forehead was a mystery:

Babylon the Great

the Mother of Harlots

and of the Abominations of the Earth.

In 1587, while visiting Southern Bohemia (now the Czech Republic), the famous scholar and magician John
Dee and his assistant Edward Kelly underwent a series of magical workings, with Kelly scrying for visions in a
black obsidian mirror. They made contact with a spirit called Madimi, who appeared in the figure of a young girl,
and offered Kelley the following vision:

I am the daughter of Fortitude, and ravished every hour from my youth. For behold I am Understanding and
science dwelleth in me; and the heavens oppress me. They cover and desire me with infinite appetite; for none
that are earthly have embraced me, for I am shadowed with the Circle of the Stars and covered with the morn-
ing clouds. My feet are swifter than the winds, and my hands are sweeter than the morning dew. My garments
are from the beginning, and my dwelling place is in myself. The Lion knoweth not where I walk, neither do the
beast of the fields understand me. I am deflowered, yet a virgin; I sanctify and am not sanctified. Happy is he
that embraceth me: for in the night season I am sweet, and in the day full of pleasure. My company is a harmo-
ny of many symbols and my lips sweeter than health itself. I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with
such as know me not. For lo, I am loved of many, and I am a lover to many; and as many as come unto me as
they should do, have entertainment.

Purge your streets, O ye sons of men, and wash your houses clean; make yourselves holy, and put on righteous-
ness. Cast out your old strumpets, and burn their clothes; abstain from the company of other women that are
defiled, that are sluttish, and not so handsome and beautiful as I, and then will I come and dwell amongst you:
and behold, I will bring forth children unto you, and they shall be the Sons of Comfort. I will open my gar-
ments, and stand naked before you, that your love may be more enflamed toward me.

This is the first appearance of BABALON, whose name is a translation of an Enochian word meaning wicked.
The vision granted to Kelly bears a striking similarity with that of the unnamed goddess of the ancient coptic
text Thunder, Perfect Mind, one of the manuscripts found at the Nag Hammadi library in 1945.

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The infamous decadent Aleister Crowley attempted to copy Dee’s experiment, first in 1900, and then again in
1909, this time with the assistance of his lover Victor Neuburg. This second invocation, which took place in the
Algerian desert, was a success, and the pair made contact with the Great Goddess Herself:

I am the harlot that shaketh Death.

This shaking giveth the Peace of Satiate Lustrous .
Immortality jetteth from my skull,
And music from my vulva.
Immortality jetteth from my vulva also,
For my Whoredom is a sweet scent like a seven-stringed instrument,
Played unto God the Invisible, the all-ruler,
That goeth along giving the shrill scream of orgasm. 1

Today many people, of many disparate paths and traditions, do the

Work of Our Lady; they can often be known by Her sign, which
is a septagram.

Babalon is a Modern Goddess. She has risen like a tide in response

to the repression of the Divine Feminine in the West for the past two
thousand years. Babalon is represented in a series of archetypes; the
Divine Feminine; the Great Mother; the Succubus; the Initiatrix; the
Holy Whore. She is often viewed as the female sexual impulse, or else
as Lust, but these are false simplifications. Instead, we should under-
stand that through working with Babalon we can come experience
divinity in all aspects of physicality. She is Strength - Joy - Joissance
- Ecstasy. She is the Glory of Life itself, of passion, desire, instinct,
conflict, war, cruelty, and Love itself. She is the Divine Mother who
kills everything She creates, and this is the Glory of the World.

Alonsgide Her Great Beast She represents the Mysteries of Polarity, which is the basis of Sex, but also of all
Difference and Otherness in the world. She symbolises the great Strength, potential, and the drawing, calling,
evocative depths that often appear as passivity. She tells us that the Mysteries of Sex are not as they first appear,
and are indistinct from the Mysteries of Death.

1
The Cry of the 2nd Aethyr, which is called ARN. Any seeker with a serious interest in Babalon would do well to
read this text, and to meditate upon its content.

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 WHAT IS THE NATURE OF HER WORK?

This is the secret of the Holy Graal, that is the sacred vessel of our Lady the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the
Mother of Abominations, the bride of Chaos, that rideth upon our Lord the Beast. Thou shalt drain out thy
blood that is thy life into the golden cup of her fornications. Thou shalt mingle thy life with the universal life.
Thou shalt keep not back one drop.

In the outstretched hand of Babalon is the Cup of Abominations. This Cup is the Holy Grail. It represents the
potential for divinity, and infinity, that lies within the flesh; the Secret of the Holy Grail is the Mystery of the
Divinity that your physical body, your skin and hormones and nerves and memories and desires and all your gro-
tesque effluvium, is capable of creating. Babalon is another way of saying, You are Holy and Divine; not despite
your flesh, but because of it.

Many believe that ecstasy is the starting-point of Work with Our Lady; they are not wrong, so long as they do
not think that ecstasy is found in escape. Work with Our Lady begins with silence, and space - inside, not out.
It requires humility and chastity, and patience. Enduring these things until one hears Her voices is what is often
called “Knowledge and Conversation.”

Once this has been achieved, the seeker is ready to approach the Abyss, which is a symbol of the depths of the
structures of one’s own Ego, one’s own personality, in the deepest sense. To progress through Her Mysteries re-
quires the work of complex: the working out and working through of all the cultural conditioning that is carried
within your body. The more deep and sacred the line appears, the more thoroughly it must be cleaned. A quote
from Leah Hirsig’s diary may provide some clarity:

To get at people’s “conventions” trouble I suggest two main lines:

1 for the simple—ask the question “What troubles you most in life.”
2 for the more complex animal—Force him with a list of all the crimes possible and ask him
to mention the one that he thinks worst “wicked” or “disgusting” or some such term.

Remember Her name means ‘wicked’; the work of Babalon is the work of questioning what you were taught to
regard as evil. Thanks to the ministrations of Plato and St Augustine, in western society evil can always ultimate-
ly be reduced to qualities inherent in the body and flesh; specifically, that it can be corrupted, and that it dies. Yet
these same things, when viewed from the perspective of Babalon, are the source of Joy; flesh is temporary, but
through our flesh, we can experience divinity, which is infinite. Our Lady reveals the potential for experiencing
this divinity in our physical bodies, something that can only come about after peeling off the layers of shame
that we have grown over the years.

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 GENERAL GUIDANCE FOR BABALON DEVOTION

BUILDING A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE GODDESS

Set and Setting: Building an Altar

An altar is a place which displays your relationship with the divine. It is symbolic of your personal relationship,
and serves to represent, glorify and increase aspects of it. An altar is a place, a space, a mandala. It is a doorway,
but also a physical representation. It is a conflation of symbol and real, like a little section ripped from Borges’
map. It represents your relationship with the divine, and at the same time is this relationship, in some kind of in-
describable way, indescribable because it is the place where the separation of numinous and physicality disappa-
rate, in memory and emotion and fervour and fire. If magic is the negotiation and renegotiation of personhood
as it encounters the divine, then your altar is the map which charts and charges those negotiations.

Put yourself in the position of prayer, St Ignatius said, and you will feel prayerful. Surround yourself with sym-
bols that represent the thing you want, and inflame your soul toward it. The more love, energy, intention and de-
votion you put into your altar, its upkeep, offerings, and your daily time of devotion there; the more you shower
it with wine, petals, menstrual blood and fine perfumes; the more potent a palace will this become for you. This
is your sacred space; create it according to your most fervent, holy desires. Make it a place of celebration, love
and joy. Act as though this is a sacred space, and it will soon become so. For what is magic, but the game that
becomes real in the playing of it?

Deliberately Willed Belief

And speaking of games and reality: it is not enough, when searching for the Goddess, to simply suspend disbe-
lief, to make oneself open to being convinced. No; the seeker must take this impulse one step further. Having
suspended disbelief (remembering disbelief is taught, and children will believe anything) we must then choose
to believe. Not to believe all, but to believe, very deliberately and willfully—and not in the Goddess Herself,
whose existence is not dependant upon you— but to believe in your own capacity to experience the radical,
earth-shattering joissance of Our Lady. One must believe this, and cultivate, constantly, its creation, through set
and setting, and through fervour, through emotional pitch and ecstasy.

But this faith, this choice to believe, to re-orient one’s life around an epistemological choice; this is a most radi-
cal thing, and a most effective one. The proof is in the pudding, the joy is in the going; and this is the game that
becomes real as one plays it. Why do we think play cannot be the most serious of things? For all this, it is all in
your head— until, one day, it is not. This chosen, willed belief— this is the ideal exercise of will itself. This will
exercised in devotion, in the joy of going, working for work’s sake, with no aim in mind but the glory of the god-
dess, and the expectation of her coming—a radical intrusion of grace. Become radically open to every interaction
between the self and the divine. Work to experience active passivity. Do it just for the joy of worship, not having
any intent other than just to be one with, dissolution, communication. Bare the soul for the joy of being naked.

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 Fervour
Fervour is the emotional pitch, the catalyst. It can be cultivated through eroticism, hedonism, and practices and states
of body that are often called ecstatic. However, most ecstasy is misnamed—better to call it instasy, for is not all plea-
sure and pain, all experience, accessible only through the body? To be filled with fervour is to allow the fires of the
body, the raging dark red fire of eros, the cold blue gleam of justice, these tides of will and power—to allow them to
fill one, without toppling one into the freedom of dissociation. To fill, to feel, without shame, without cutting off any
aspect—to be wholly, truly honest—not only with the edifice of self, but with the body itself, with all the pain and
shame which twists muscles and sinews, and all the hidden pleasures that ruck and smooth the flesh under the skin.
Experience the pleasure of existence, the joy of physicality, of presence— a happy contentedness that feels as though
it would burst from the very skin of which it is made. Pleasure that leads not to the faux-ecstatic, but to jouissance—
after all, what is god if not pressure?

Enflame oneself with the heights of erotic pitch, with eroticism, desire, destruction. Experience such pleasure of
existence, joy of existence, as though you would burst from your own skin. Feel as though you are on fire, that you
are fire. The flames burst orange and blue— cold electric fire that is sharp like steel. This inflammation of spirit, this
deep joy of physicality, of experience, this reaching— not out, but ever more in, to evermore understanding — for all
understanding can, necessarily, only take place in the body. There is no escaping Malkuth; it must be traversed, won
anew, every day of one’s search for the King. Pan is the emissary of Our Lady, and the quickest and most potent way
to Her is through Him. Do not fear the senses, nor sensuality. Trust your body, and its feelings of joy, and its feelings
of desire. Instatic, utter delight in the body—a release that does not end, but is the creation of a circuit, two cups
pouring endlessly into one another—this is the nature of jouissance, and the end of inflammation—that is to say, it
has no end, only eternal beginnings. We can only know Our Lady through the body - as, indeed, we can only know
anything. We must build on this body, work with it, work on it; we must discover our limits, our outpourings and
our circuits. Thus, when She comes, we will be more prepared; and Her coming, which is always an act of grace and
is wholly destructive, wholly reconstitutive, will nevertheless be a little easier to bear, with our back muscles strong
enough to brace against the force of the wound.

SEVEN EXERCISES IN SELF-EXAMINATION

1. Meditate on the wicked and disgusting and evil. Choose a scene that revolts you, and spend time there.
Repeat, until the scene no longer causes you revulsion, the physical response of disgust. Nothing is in and
of itself evil – evil is simply force out of place. The most disgusting things are natural.
2. What, to you, is the opposite of the divine? Go looking for Our Lady there.
3. What are the principles by which you live your life, by which you have constructed your personality?
What do you hold most dear? Now destroy all this, and cast it from you.
4. To what do you owe allegiance? If the answer is ‘nothing’, then consider that the answer is in fact ‘ego’.
Consider what is altered if allegiance to Our Lady is declared.
5. The commitment of service and devotion must be made and remade in every moment. As you begin this
work, every time you think of it, make a formal (mental) dedication to Her. In time, this mode of prayer will
become second nature.
6. You cannot escape the Abyss while clinging to ego. All the monsters of the Abyss are only distorted reflec-
tions and shadows of the inside of your head. Consider your own monsters. From what seed has their mon-
strosity evolved? Explore the play of shadow to find the light.
7. Trauma can be a teacher. It can equally create a prison. Understand the way your own trauma has created a
tower, a room with locks and bars. It is not always possible to unlock this room; but recognise that the tower
will be destroyed by Her, and all the monsters within shall be released. Accept this as fact. The tower will fall.

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 THREE EXERCISES IN DEVOTION
1. Altar and Body Care
The altar serves as a symbolic doorway between you and the divine. It is the bridge between the microcosm
and the macrocosm. It is a living symbol of your spiritual life, your beliefs, your practice, your faith. Almost
like a snapshot of your soul, in a way. Even after contact and communication is achieved it will always serve as
the place where your union is made manifest on this plane. It sounds so simple to say, but create a Temple, and
spend time in it every day. Find a corner of a room or a whole room, it doesn’t matter. Create a space of quiet
and solitude. Decorate it with all of the things that feel natural to you to place upon it. Decorate it with things
that are symbolic of how the divine feels to you. Or changes you wish to create within. Anything and everything
that is representative of Her. Create a space of love and then spend time every day loving it. Light candles, burn
incense, make offerings of whatever you feel appropriate and called to do so. Learn and recognize how you start
to feel sitting in front of your altar. Learn to carry that emotion and headspace with you out into the world, for
this how your Inner Temple feels. Time spent dwelling in the Outer Temple will help to strengthen this Inner
Temple is carried with you always.

We often, in our pursuit of divinity, lose track of our vessel, our body, the true seat of our Temple. Only in Mal-
kuth (the world) can one experience Kether(the divine). Thus does every experience have within it the germ of
the experience of the Divine. Learn to treat your body the way you do your Temple, as a record of all your Work,
and as a tool for the experience of Her. Perfect, beautify, worship your vessel, whatever that means for you. Try
not to focus on aesthetic accoutrements, but on the body itself - manicuring, massaging, moisturising, exfoliat-
ing, treating self-care as a form of devotion - of devotion to the divine within our body. Learn to feel your body
as the body of god. Feel your muscles, skin, and sinew, and know that they are divine.

2. Radical honesty
The path of devotion is a painful one, for it requires you to be completely, utterly honest with yourself. It requires
that you discover and explicate the lies which you have told yourself, some of which may lie very deep. They may
even be the foundations of your very self. Good; go at them with a shovel, and let the tower of the edifice fall.
You cannot make the changes required of you, the seeker, the desirer of Our Lady, you cannot give yourself to
Her, truly, until you have come to understand who your self (and your not-self ) truly is.

Keep a journal in your temple. Make a habit of writing in it as part of your daily time spent dwelling in the
Temple Space. Allow every stray thought that comes to mind as you sit, to be written upon its pages. Do not
allow yourself to evade, or sweep aside; every thought, every lie, every truth, every impulse, every emotion, write
it down, no matter how vile or obscene. In this journal you cannot lie, even by omission. Make this journal a
place (and by extension, the Temple a space) where you are completely honest with your self about your self, your
life and your choices. Spend a little time each day, after writing, reading your previous entries, and be honest
with yourself about the thoughts and feelings these conjure too. Honesty with the self is one of the most difficult
habits to create, but is equally one of the most potent transformative tools that there is, and it is this that is the
foundation of the work toward Our Lady/. For, and I tell you with experience; if you are not honest with your-
self, if you do not dig with industry, no matter how hard or grotesque the lode - then, when she comes, she will
tear it all up for you, and it will be a far more rapacious and ravenous fire of destruction, it will be all the more
shattering and life-destroying, if the foundation of your work toward Her has not been one of ego-destruction.
Our Lady does not suffer fools.

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3. Praying
The path of devotion is one of communication, so learn to talk with the Divine. Learn to pray. Sit before the
altar and speak from the heart. Pray aloud. Speak what’s on your mind and heart in regards to how you feel, and
how you feel about Her. Even if it sounds silly or unworthy or embarrassing or even if it’s just stringing togeth-
er adjectives, just get what is in your heart out. Think of the emotions that the symbols you have decorated your
altar with invoke, then speak them aloud. Any words that you feel called to speak or sing then give them voice.
By learning to pray we learn to hear the voice of the divine. As we give voice to what we feel called to say we
learn to hear Her voice.

Make it a point to read aloud a prayer every day before the altar. This prayer can be of any form - a reading from
one of Her holy texts, a poem or passage that speaks to you of Her. Liber Cheth, Thunder, Perfect Mind are
particularly good for this. Or, you may use one of the Temple’s prayers:

Take, My Lady, and receive my entire liberty, my memory, my understanding and my whole will. All that
I am and all that I possess I give to be joined with you. I surrender it all to You to be directed and dis-
posed of according to Your will. Give me only Your love, Your grace, and the honor of Your service; with
these I will be rich enough, and will desire nothing more.

Repeating Our Lady’s name as mantra is also a very effective form of prayer, particularly if repeated 156
times. For this practice, ensure, if you can, the correct pronunciation of Our Lady’s name, which is Ba’ba-
lon (pronounced bae-baelon). In time, you should begin to write your own poems and prayers, to read
aloud in the Temple.

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 MEDITATIONS

THE CAVE MEDITATION (CREATE-YOUR-OWN FANTASY )

This meditation series is intended to create a safe space wherein one can explore one’s own sites of complexes
before opening these to the other - not because we are weak, or need some kind of extra help, but because if
we open ourselves to the other before we understand what this means, we either throw ourselves away or keep
ourselves distinct. The conscious, willed openness our lady demands is not the throw-away of ecstasy but us con-
sciously and carefully cultivated.

This is a template for fantasising. Keep your fantasies divine, and honest. As Fortune says, there is a little-under-
stood therapeutic power to fantasy, and an initiatory one too, to boot. Have fun, and seek Her.

Imagine you are in a cave, before an altar drapes in red. The walls are dripping, alive with moss, glistening. Sit
before your altar, until someone comes to bring you from this place.

Travel through the tunnel until you reach an entrance

There is a cave, filled with pools, and the pools are filled with your complexes. What troubles you most in life?
Imagine the cave, see the content of the pools.

The pools, cleared, begin to glow. They lead you through the cave to a great stone gate. Before you is Her temple.
Build it in your mind, every sensuous and shining detail, over and over again.

You are a servant of the temple. Imagine yourself as such, live, in your mind, your daily life, and consider the
nature of your work.

Imagine the worship you oversee. The feasts and food you eat. Imagine your magical partner, and the work you
do together at the temple.

Visualise, in as much detail as you can, a ritual at the temple. Try to build this across several days - fantasies of
waiting and preparation, then a long, luxurious fantasy of the ritual itself.

If you wish, and I have found it particularly effective, you can read aloud, imagine and even write ritual in the
caves. Persephone’s mass was partially created, and first enacted, here.

Envision Our Lady. Hear Her. What does She say?

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 THE HERMIT CRAB (CRUSTACEAN MEDITATION)2
You are a hermit crab, upon a vast and sandy beach. You have grown, you are squeezed by this pearlescent cara-
pace. That which had once protected you, has now become a prison. Come out of the shell. Emerge, slowly, one
articulated leg at a time. Last, the pink and fleshy belly. Feel yourself naked, fleshy, vulnerable. Focus on the sen-
sation, the wind on your newly naked skin. That fear, that vulnerability, make it delicious, like iron on the tongue.
Make yourself vulnerable. Death comes from above. This is the risk you must take, in your quest. Accept death
on the beach. Is that seagull that would eat you, is he not god?3 Is his beak not the jaws of grace?

Naked, discover the land of a thousand shells. Scuttle to the new shell. But each time you do this, force your-
self to stay outside a little longer. Twist and fit inside it. Feel the space and the limits of the new shell you have
chosen. Rest. Then repeat. One day, when you move from one shell to another, the wind on the flesh will feel too
good. You will decide to keep the new shell close by, but to stay outside for a while. One day, you will realise you
do not need the shell any more. Death could come at any moment, so why not feel the breeze?4

2
This is a brief meditation on the nature of ego and edifice and mask and veil and shell. This meditation is
particularly effective if one undresses and re-dresses as one leaves and finds the shell.
3
That extremely white bird, placing himself near Venus, as she was bathing and swimming, informed her
that her son was severely burnt, and that he was groaning with the pain of the wound, and that his cure was
doubtful[…] there is no longer any pleasure, elegance, and festivity to be found, but that everything is inelegant,
uncivilised and horrid[…] enormous filth, and the bitter loathing of sordid compacts. (85)
4
Trooping back and forth between hermit and chariot we cross Strength/Lust. Working backward through the
Major Arcana we can see that Strength is an act of becoming vulnerable in relation – through strength, we learn
to be vulnerable – a vulnerability, a strength-in-weakness, which is key to Balance.

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 THE EQUINOX OF THE BEES

Please note, although this ritual was written to be undertaken as one long piece, each of the sections can also be profitably
undertaken as an individual meditation.

“Let my idle chatter be the muttering of prayer, my every manual movement the execution of ritual ges-
ture, my walking a ceremonial circumambulation, my eating and other acts the rite of sacrifice, my lying
down, prostration in worship, my every pleasure enjoyed with dedication of myself, let whatever activity
of mine be some form of worship of you.”

Saundaryalahari, 27

Introduction
There is a great controversy that plagues examinations of body and spirit. It seems every source tells us we must
either be an ascetic, or a hedonist. Rejecting both, we tread a sad and grim middle path. Yet there is another way
- the both/and. It is possible to be both an ascetic, and a hedonist. To experience the goddess in every dealing of
the self with the world around us. And this is not a metaphor for life experiences or astral journeys but a com-
mand that every single movement, every thought, every breath, every bite and stomach full, that each of these
be recognised for its potential to experience divinity - and for divinity to experience us. The body and spirit are
not distinct. Our gods do not float somewhere above our heads, nor do they live in trees or temples. They exist in
the inbetween - in the senses, in experience, in the huge multifaceted mass that is the individual constellation’s
everflowing experience of life. This contemplation seeks to remind us of the everywhere-ness of the godhead. Of
the god in the sense, and the god in the heart - that we are god, that god is us - that we create images, but these
are not Her. And yet, they are Her - for every bit of Her can be found in the simple act of pouring a cup of tea.

We seek the byways of the gods. We need gods, though we may make of our gods what we will. There is an in-
finity of joy to be gained in the regular practice of contemplation and ritual, whatever its form or aim. Of course
all this is human, infinitely human, for we humans are infinite constellations. So too none of this is of us, for we
are all electricity, with the consciousness of planets.

Preparing the Body

Your personal form of commitment to the Work will dictate the level of preparation you undertake. A period of
fasting is always to be recommended before magical work. Three days without meat and dairy is best, followed
by the 12 hours leading up to the ritual to be devoid of any food or water. However, in contemporary times we
have lost the valuable mechanic of the fast. Thus, the very minimum should be that no food or drink is con-
sumed in the 30 minutes leading up to any ritual work. Physical cleansing is also to be recommended. A bath
with tea tree or hyssop followed by anointing with sandalwood or abramelin oil is particularly effective. Simply
a hot shower and a change of clothes will also have a potent effect. The bare minimum is a thorough washing of
the hands and face. After cleansing, wear what you Will; but whether in yoga pants, robed, or skyclad, be sure
that you feel clean and comfortable.

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 Preparing the Altar
Ingredients:
Altar
Tablecloth
Icon
Bowl of water
Teapot and cup
Flowers or herbs
Incense and candle
Paper and pen
bloodletting tool, or other offering.
Food/drink for a feast.

Before you should be an altar; a small table, or even a space cleared on the floor, covered with a tablecloth or
scarf. A circular altar the ideal for this work, but is not necessary. Upon the altar should be: an image that, to
you, signifies Our Lady. Perhaps a septagram, or Our Lady in whichever of Her faces patronises you; or a bee.
Between that icon and you should lie a bowl of water. There must also be, either upon the altar or close to it,
the preparations for tea. This may be done according to your will, but there must be a teapot, filled, and a tea
cup, empty. Ideally these should be the best you have, or precious in some other sense. The tea should ideally be
of something bitter, such as green tea with tumeric, or tea made from mugwort or other bitter herbs. Salty tea,
prepared according to the mongolian or indian styles, is also ideal. There should be flowers. Cuttings from one’s
own land or garden is always ideal, but a bunch of fresh flowers is equally good. Dried or plastic are also accept-
able, so too are bunches of fragrant herbs. A bunch of basil or thyme is readily available, inexpensive and easy to
grow (even as a pot plant), and will serve well as visual and olfactory stimulus. Upon the altar should be incense
burning, and a candle lit.

Moving into Stillness

With your body and altar thus prepared, it is time to come to the temple. Take some time to stretch out your
body, moving into the physicality and sensation. Find a comfortable position seated before the altar. Hero pose is
ideal, if you are able to hold it for an hour without ache. Cross legged is also very good. A cushion or chair is also
okay - it is important that you are able to sit comfortably. However, whichever position you take, it is important
that you maintain the proper posture. Sit on the front edge of your sitting bones, with a slight arch in your lower
back. Do not lean back, but sit upright, as though your head is being raised on an invisible string. With the sit
bones forward and the midriff erect, pull the shoulders up and back, becoming even more erect without thrust-
ing the chest out. Lift your head from the middle, not the front, and tuck your chin slightly.

Try to maintain this posture throughout. You should not be strained or uncomfortable - if you do not have a
regular practice of sitting, this may be difficult, so go easy on yourself. No not allow yourself, but equally do not
strain - try to find ease and a sense of flight as you sit. But this should feel like exercise, and work - the proper
mode of sitting is in itself an example of movement-in-stillness, of dynamic passivity.

Now, come to regulate your breath. Take a look inside your mind, as you did your body. Do not strain for empti-
ness, but come to a sense of equilibrium, of energy in stillness. Do not carve out space for this work, but contem-
plate where the space already exists.

13
As with the mental, so with the physical: provided you are in a comfortable temple space, no banishing or
circle-drawing is required for this rite. If these things help you to compose yourself for the Work, then so be it:
but Our Mother is everywhere and all, and any spatial delineation or attempt to divide between to good and bad
aspects of the spirits of things is arbitrary. Instead of attempting to delineate sacred space and mundane space,
aim to intensify the presence of She who is the Glory of the World.

Performing the Rite

This rite may be performed in one of three ways, depending on the constitution of the one who would perform
it. It may be performed alone, through reading aloud the passages marked Spoken below. This option requires
the most concentration, and offers the most margin for lapse. It may be performed with a partner, where the
partner, sitting on the opposite side of the bowl, reads aloud. I would only caution that this should be performed
with a magical partner, and one should expect the consequences of partnered work with Our Lady. Finally, it
may be performed using an audio recording, which will be provided presently.

Through the following sections, whether you are speaking or listening, you should visualise all that is said as
vividly as possible, imbuing it with emotional vigor. However if you find your sense wandering, two things may
be used to assist you.

First, throughout the duration of this rite, maintain the integrity of your posture. As you visualise do not ignore
the body - this is not astral travel, but a journey inside. If your mind wanders return it to the inside work via the
body - check in with how you feel, how your seat is, if any adjustment is needed, etc.

Second, if the use of a tattwa would be useful for your work, a downward-pointing triangle of red is most appro-
priate, and may be visualised any time you feel the focus of your contemplation wander.

The Blessing of the Bee

As the blessing is recited, one should clasp the hands and touch the crown of the head, the heart, the two shoul-
ders, and the lips, before throwing the hands up and out for the final two lines.

Spoken:

Honour to the mother, and to the mother’s mother. Honour to all my teachers, and all those who have gone before.

The golden dust of pollen for my crown

The dance of devotion in my heart
The powers of flight spread from my shoulders
The sweetness of honey upon my lips.

Io Demeter, Bitter Sea

Io honeyed one, Persephone

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 Gloria Mundi (The Adoration of the Senses)
A key aim of this practice (which can be performed every day, or every week) is the cultivation the sense-capac-
ities, and the divinity of the sensory processes. We thus aim to reconcile our arbitrary separation of the sacred
and the mundane, and so learn to find god in every mundane movement - and to find mundanity even in the
spiritual depths. Through regular work of this kind one may learn to make of the whole world a Temple; and this
is one path to the Priesthood of She.

All should be done deliberately, with intention. Not stiffly, but seeing the body as a vehicle of Will, and the
nexus of the experiences of pleasure and joy. Try to take pleasure and joy in this simple act of pouring tea. With
each section the first sentence should be spoken, then the ritualist should perform the appropriate action, then
the remaining line or lines should be spoken.

Spoken:

I pick up the tea pot. I feel the porcelain beneath my fingers, the weight within my hand. In this fired and paint-
ed earth I feel the body of Our Lady.

I pour the tea. I hear the flow of water from the spout, the answering echo of the cup. In the song of the water, I
hear the laughter of Our Lady as She takes pleasure in Her caves.

I settle my gaze onto the cup. I see the lights playing on the surface of the water. I see the steam rise in coils
towards the sky. As my eyes follow these movements I glimpse the fleeting form of Our Lady as She dances.

I close my eyes and, raising the cup, I inhale its scent. I breathe in the perfume of Our Lady’s waters, the perspi-
ration of Her skin.

I take a sip. As the hot liquid fills my mouth I taste Her. She is the honeyed one; yet Her waters are Bitter like
the Sea.

I swallow Her, and feel Her fill my belly, Her heat rising to my heart. I see her residing there. Clothed in space,
of a hue as red as dawn, drenched in the nectar of ecstasy.

She stands amidst a sacred pool. I contemplate Our Lady upon the water; the goddess dancing in my heart.

Exploration of the Inside

Spoken, and visualised:

And as the goddess dances and sings in my heart I feel the lines of fire and water that radiate this centre.

I feel the flow of blood and of bile, the tides and waves. I contemplate how my body feels, and how I feel about
it. I locate areas of discomfort, or pleasure. I have experienced the sweetness and bitterness of my senses; now I
taste the honey and salt inside of me. I do not judge nor discriminate, only feel. I bring awareness to the inside
of my skin, to my muscles, and my blood.

15
I explore the rivers and caves of my body as if it is some dark unknown continent. I consider the meeting places
and the shrines, the fields and the caves. I explore the sea, and follow the channels up to their source.

I contemplate the cave paintings on the inside of my skull. I remember my mind is part of my body, too. I
consider the places of discomfort and of pleasure there, the honey and the salt, the markets and shrines. Once
more I do not judge, reject, dissociate or revel. I only feel; the sensations, the half-formed thoughts, desires. I am
aware. I consider their source. I seek the centre.

I contemplate my journeying. I undertake a pilgrimage to the darkest caves. In the depths, there is the heavy
drone of bees; this is the nursery of the nymphs. Before the carven altar of this honeyed temple there waits a
silent, dark pool. The surface of the pool is perfect, like glass or a mirror. Yet it flows; deep in the earth the silent
spring bubbles. The pool appears still but is ever-moving, ever-new. I feel this dark pool within me. Feel the si-
lent currents and ancient springs bubble through my blood. I feel my body, watery yet solid. Strong in its passivi-
ty; supine yet ever-ready.

In my contemplation, I come to stillness. Still, but not stiff. I feel my body strong in its passiveness, relaxed yet
ready. I bring my awareness to the constant vibrations that echo through my body, the low drone of the bees who
guard the sacred pool. I listen to the song of my cells, the low hum. I am aware that, even in stillness, I possess
an infinite potential for movement and growth. My very materiality is a storehouse of energy; and this stillness I
inhabit is as energetic a choice as an ecstatic dance. I dance in the stillness.

I bring my awareness to the pillar of light that ascends my spine. I explore it; I touch it gently with my mind,
feel the sparks and flow. I look closely, and see that it is not one line, but two, an ever-twisting double-helix of
light, dancing and playing eternally through the pathways of my body. This is the source of life and of death. I
contain within me the creation of the universe, and the destruction of eternity. All this - and yet these forces are
perfectly balanced within this delicate sphere called I.

Composition of the Garden Temple

Spoken, and visualised:

Now I imagine this vibrating stillness called I finds itself in a garden. I fill my senses with the place. I feel the
warmth of the earth beneath me, the tickle of the beetle crawling over my foot, the soft breeze playing over my
bare skin. The scent of grass, and steaming earth, and flowers and wild herbs. The lazy lolling drone of bees, and
the song of birds overhead.

I open my eyes to the garden. It is more beautiful and more perfect than any earthly garden, here in the valley
in the high mountains, where the purple phoenix makes its nest. The grass in the garden is long and lush, and
scattered all about are patches of wild wheat and corn. With the bursting Spring of contemplation my flowers
bloom. To the south is a thick swathe of poppies, spilling bloody droplets over the red clay. To the north, a heavy
stand of lilies, their whiteness defying the dark earth. To the west there is a grove of pomegranate trees, thick
with fruit and flower. Dittany grows around the outcrops of the valley’s walls.

All this is so much exquisite background, for I am seated facing east, by a pool wherein all this beautiful garden
is reflected, quivering. Seated at the edge of the pool, I am reflected too. Yet the reflection is something more
than me - it shines and vibrates, and jerks and moves and spirals with the current, seen out the corner of my
eye. At the far side of the pool, its roots and weeping branches breaking the water, stands a willow, its ancient

16
branches twisted with ivy. The trunk of the willow is hollow, and therein a drift of bees has made their nest. The
whole tree hums, and drips with honey. At the foot of the tree grows a plant with shining black berries. It is
the fruit of Our Lady of beauty and death. And the hollow trunk of the tree is the form of a woman; the most
perfect figure of art it is possible to contemplate, flowing and flawed with the knots of the wood and dripping,
ever dripping, with honey.

She dances on the water, too - in the watery pool the goddess and I dance and sing in the garden. Yet, all is still
and quiet, but for the busy drone of the bees.

In the distance, I hear a gentle wail, as of a mother searching for her child. In the distance, a voice comes in
answer - “Mother, I am coming. Mother, I am coming home.”

And as the garden spills its sparkling life before me, and the plants and the insects dance and love and pray, I
cast my offering into the pool. It is a little tangle of pale pink dust, tied up in an old white handkerchief. I cast
this piteous gift into the water, This piteous gift which is everything I am, everything I have, everything I might
ever be.

And I say: I am noone.

And the dust in the kerchief mixes with the water, and its rising falling dance like smoke betrays the secret cur-
rents therein. For this pool is fed by the same springs that feed that other pool. For this is Her land. The Garden
is the crown of Her caves.

Invocation of Our Lady Rising

In the darkness there is single head of wheat.
With a scythe the head is cut.

Still in the seated position, assume the arms of Isis in Welcome.

Spoken:

I appear like the early morning rays of the Sun.

My teeth are perfect, pearly black, black bees between red lips perfectly curved across the circle of my face, rising
like the dawn. A curved half moon upon my forehead, my eyes impenetrable in ny reddened brow.

My arms like the crescent of the moon, only more perfect.

My lithe, playful hands with their glinting nails are wrapped around a simple golden Cup of exquisite crafts-
manship.

My rising breasts lie gleaming, pendulous upon the starry expanse of my chest.

Upon my beautiful, mountainous belly is the Monuments of Nations. My round hips lie like precious jewels, or
mountains amidst the sea. I wear a girdle of starry rubies.

I am veiled all in red silk, a gauze transparent in its fineness. I am adorned with red gems, set in gold.

17
My redness is the redness of the rose, or of red earth, or of pomegranate seeds.
My beautiful body, lithe as a gazelle but for the perfect protrusion of my belly.

My whole body hums, like the drone of the honeybee. In my Form is infinite Force.

Smeared with red earth, I am the vanquisher of the God of Love.

I stand in a pool of the sweetest water, for immortality flows from my vulva.

The Great Beast lies down to drink from my pool.

I am the Sacred Courtesan. The Harlot that Shaketh Death. I am the Blasphemed Against, the Beaten and Bro-
ken, the Rising Up. I am the Mother of Life and the Birth of Destruction. Mine is the most Holy and Sacred
Cup of Fornications.

The Sacrifice
Dwell with the knowledge of yourself in godform. Open your eyes, and breathe this image in its vitality into the
icon in front of you. Seven times breathe the living image of the goddess into the icon. Focus your gaze upon the
icon, see Our Lady inhabit it, see Her one with it, as She inhabits and is one with you.

It is now time to offer a sacrifice to Our Lady. First, make sure a candle and incense are lit upon the altar. Then,
make your offering. Ideally this will be a promise, a dedication, an intention; a concrete act in the future, or a
dedication to Her every month, or every moment. This should be written on a slip of paper, anointed with blood,
and burnt, with the ashes scattered into the bowl of water. Alternatively, this may be spoken aloud as blood or
ink is dropped into the water.

If such an offering does not appeal (or in addition, if that be your will), flowers or fruit or sweet things may be
offered. Remember quality is always to be prioritised before quantity. Our Lady is Lady of the Earth, which is
Dying. A single square of fine chocolate, a spray of rosemary, or an apple are preferable to a jumbo box of choco-
lates, fifty roses, or a basket of exotic fruit.

Our Lady is Lady of Song, so it is particularly fitting to cement your promise with a mantra or song. One in
particular is most suitable and holy for work with Our Lady:

Spoken or sung:

Omari tessala marax,

tessala dodi phornepax.
amri radara poliax
armana piliu.
amri radara piliu son’;
mari narya barbiton
madara anaphax sarpedon
andala hriliu.

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 Contemplation
It is now time to compose oneself to receive Her blessing. Once more find stillness. Feel the energy in this
stillness, and understand that receptiveness is not a passive act, but an active one. Take the image of the god-
dess before you and once more breathe it seven times into your heart. Do not yearn for the Goddess, but dwell
with Her. Feel Her ever-present flame. Fill every sense with Her, as earlier you found Her in the arrows of every
sense. She is that to which every experience must be offered. Inflame yourself in prayer.

You should now undertake a period of contemplation. How long you spend depends entirely on how long you,
personally, can maintain concentration. This might be anything from ten seconds to an hour. In order to ease
concentration, you may wish to to use a mantra to aid your meditation here. It is best if this is something that is
easily memorizable and repeatable. The mantra “Ave Babalon,” sung seven times, is ideal. Alternatively you may
use Omari tessala marax once again. You may also choose to use the first lines of the Homeric Hymn to Deme-
ter, which would be particularly effective here, and are as follows:

Demeter nukomon,
semnen theon,
arcom aeidein,
auten ede thugatra tanusphoron

Δήμητρ᾽ ἠύκομον,
σεμνὴν θεόν,
ἄρχομ᾽ ἀείδειν,
αὐτὴν ἠδὲ θύγατρα τανύσφυρον

I sing of Demeter,
the holy goddess with the golden hair,
and of Her daughter, too

You are equally welcome to use a mantra personal to your own Work with Her, or one relevant to your chosen
form of the goddess.

The Feast
Work with Our Lady should always be followed by a feast. This is a mark of respect, and the logical outcome of
a sacrificial act. It is also a practical matter; eating and drinking brings the forces back to earth. This is a lone rite,
and so here the usual communal feast takes new forms. One may choose to share a meal or a bowl of fruit with
Our Lady, dedicating to Her every aspect of the experience; finding Her in the joy of taste and texture (as in the
tea ceremony above). The experience of pleasure is dedicated to Her - and in the same movement, that expe-
rience of pleasure is the experience of Her. The feast may be naught more than a cup of hot tea or coffee, with
every sip taken a microcosm of the movement of Her Great Bitter Seas; yet the meal should be well considered:
it is better to have warm water with a slice of lemon from a favourite cup, than a chain-restaurant pizza in a
cardboard tray. The intake of earthly nourishment should be accompanied with a sense of connection to Her; in
time one should learn to find Her in every such act - but for now, in thanks for what She has given on this day,
this feast will be unto Her.

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 Epilogue
There is a sweetness to Her presence. Bombarded as we are with sugar, and all things light and nice, we forget
that good honey is so sweet it is almost painful on the tongue.

One may spend one hour every day in mediation and Work; but if this time is sectioned off from so-called nor-
mal life, then this is wasted. One’s relationship with the divine is the Work, but it is not work as we have grown
to know it. To meditate according to the clock, 30 mins every morning - this is the ultimate itemization of the
spiritual path. Thus the box can be ticked, the spiritual has been achieved rather than experienced.

What is sex magic? It is learning to understand the divinity of sex, and the divinity available through sex. It is
not black candles and a circle on the floor. We magicians rejected the gods and ended up with a tradition of
lip-service. There are no part-time adepts. So too with food - is it any wonder we cannot inhabit our bodies, can-
not remember every consumption is an intaking of the goddess, when the food-systems of which we are a part
are so utterly monstrous? But that is not a reason not to try - to understand every single piece of food and drink
one puts in one’s body, just as much as every dealing with the man on the street, or every prayer and creation, is a
dealing with Our Lady, a face-to-face with the divine.

The principles of right eating are simple, yet they cannot be tricked or traded. We have commodified and com-
mercialised our world until it is easy, the easiest thing, to live a life devoid of joy. In this climate, the greatest
resistance is joy. Pure, unbridled, unbounded, joy. Understand that joy is found in the interstices of the body with
the outside world, and all is transformed. Now eat those ground-up, antibiotic-filled chicken feet and tell me, do
you feel joy? Now try this kheer, brown rice cooked slow in milk, with fruit and spices. Is this not the sustenance
of Our Lady’s breast? Eat in a way that soothes and fuels your body. Eat according to the season, your locale, and
your means. And eat for joy. Switch off the tv, put down the book, and consider what you do as you eat. Find the
experience of Our Lady there.

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 INTRODUCTORY READING LIST
Please note this is not a list of books about Babalon, so few of which we have found valuable on our path; instead, this is
a list of books that have been influential in the creation and growth of the Temple. Dates given are of first publication,
unless otherwise indicated

Holy Texts

Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice (1911) https://hermetic.com/crowley/the-vision-and-the-voice/index

Aleister Crowley, Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni sub figurâ CLVI (written 1911) https://hermetic.com/crowley/
libers/lib156

Thunder, perfect mind (translated by George W. MacCrae) http://gnosis.org/naghamm/thunder.html

Aleister Crowley, Liber LXV Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figurâ ‫( אדני‬written 1907) https://hermetic.com/
crowley/libers/lib570

Aleister Crowley, Liber DCCCXIII vel ARARITA sub figurâ DLXX (written 1907-8) https://hermetic.com/
crowley/libers/lib570

Hymn to Inana (Inana C, translation) http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4073.htm

General Reading

Dion Fortune, The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage (1924)

Dion Fortune, The Mystical Qabalah (1935)

Frater Achad (Charles Stanfield Jones), The Chalice of Ecstasy: Being a Magical and Qabalistic Interpretation of the
Drama of Parzival (1923) https://hermetic.com/achad/misc/chalice-of-ecstasy

Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies (1912) https://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/lib333.htm

Sylvia Brinton Perera Descent to the Goddess: A Way of Initiation for Women (1981)

Aleister Crowley, ‘Dedit!’ in The Drug and Other Stories (2010)

Frater Achad, 31 Hymns to Star Goddess (1923) https://www.100thmonkeypress.com/biblio/achad/downloads/

downloads_achad.htm

Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight, The Circuit of Force: Occult Dynamics of the Etheric Vehicle (1998)

Nema, Maat Magick: A Guide to Self-Initiation, (1995)

Frater Achad, OBL, or The Bride’s Reception (1922) https://hermetic.com/achad/qbl/index

Aleister Crowley, Eight Lectures on Yoga (1939)

21
Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy (1913) https://hermetic.com/
spare/pleasure

Aleister Crowley, Book of Thoth (1944) https://archive.org/stream/AleisterCrowleyTheBookOfThoth/Aleis-

ter+Crowley+-+The+book+of+Thoth_djvu.txt

Daniel Schulke and Robert Fitzgerald, A Rose Veiled in Black: Art and Arcana of Our Lady Babalon (2016)

Black Moon, Women of Babalon: A Howling of Women’s Voices (2015)

Amodali, The Harlot that Shaketh Death (2019) https://www.amodali.com/the-harlot-that-shaketh-death/

Erica M Cornelius, On Redemption as a Woman (2014) http://www.cornelius93.com/on_redemption_as_a_woman.html

Novels etc (to feed your fantasies)

Apuleius, The Golden Ass: Being the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius (translated by Thomas Taylor 1822)

Dion Fortune, The Sea Priestess (1938)

Dion Fortune, The Goat-Foot God (1936)

Terry Pratchett, Small Gods (1992)

Naomi Mitchison, The Corn King and the Spring Queen (1930)

Joris-Karl Huysmans, La Bas (The Damned) (1891)

Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan (1894)

Thomas Mallory, La Morte D’Arthur (1485)

Emile Zola, Nana (1880)

Further Reading (Historical, Anthropological, Theological and Theoretical)

Jessie Weston, From Ritual to Romance (1919)

George Frazer, The Golden Bough: A Study in Comparative Religion (1890)

Mary Greer, Women of the Golden Dawn: Rebels and Priestesses (1995)

George P. Hansen, The Trickster and the Paranormal

Marcella Althaus-Reid, Indecent Theology (2000)

Jean Baudrillard, Seduction (1990)

Jean-Luc Marion, The Erotic Phenomenon (2007)

Jean-François Lyotard, Libidinal Economy (1974)

22