It’s no exaggeration to say that Scientology’s had a very rough year, what with ongoing protests, high-level defectors, and the publication of every last shred of their “confidential” documents.
About the only thing left in the drawer was a mysterious set of papers detailing the “Babalon working,” a magical operation undertaken in 1946 by Scientology’s founder L. Ron Hubbard and Aleister Crowley acolyte Jack Parsons.
Hubbard’s start in the OTO has been pretty well documented, but the Church of Scientology has long insisted that Hubbard was not participating in ritual magick, but in fact on a secret government mission to break up a “Satanic cult.” Try hard not to laugh, but until now, it was their word against everyone else’s, so members of the church were free to accept that explanation.
A record of the working exists in the archives of the Warburg Institute Library, and has remained unpublished until now- an intentional act that makes for an interesting story. It seems that after a brief mention of the working in the British press, the documents were rescinded by then-owner Gerald Yorke, a secretary of Aleister Crowley. On Yorke’s death, the papers were returned, under condition they not be published for twenty-five years. The papers will reportedly be unsealed on Jan 4, 2010. Here’s hoping they made copies…
