Marjorie Cameron
| Marjorie Cameron Parsons | |
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 Marjorie Cameron Parsons |
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| Born | 23 April 1922 Belle Plaine, Iowa, USA |
| Died | 24 June 1995 (73) Los Angeles, California, USA |
Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel (23 April 1922 – 24 June 1995) was an artist, occultist, actress, and wife of rocket pioneer and occultist Jack Parsons. Cameron played a major role in the 1946 Babalon Working ritual.
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Early life [edit]
Cameron was born in 1922 in Belle Plaine, Iowa. She was a cantankerous, rebellious child whose mystical, artistic nature went against the grain of her railroad worker father, church-going family, and small town neighbors. Graduating from Davenport High School in 1940 at the height of World War II, she enlisted in the Navy and was assigned the tasks of drawing maps and working in a photographic unit, jobs that she later regretted as her "karmic connection" to wartime deaths. Despite her success in these jobs, when she learned that her brother, an Air Force tail gunner, had been injured in action, she fled to Iowa to see him. She was declared AWOL, court-martialed and confined to base for the remainder of the war.
Jack Parsons, the Babalon Working, and Cameron as the Scarlet Woman [edit]
Upon her honorable discharge from the service in 1945, Cameron moved to Pasadena where she became a fashion illustrator. Disillusioned with mainstream culture, she became an enthusiastic supporter of jazz, frequenting the black clubs on Central Avenue. Her life was forever changed, however, when an old Navy friend took her to meet John Whiteside Parsons, better known as Jack Parsons. Instantly struck by Cameron's dramatic red hair and intriguing looks, Parsons was convinced she was his Scarlet Woman, the entity he and L. Ron Hubbard had just conjured up during their sexual magick experiment called the Babalon Working, an occult rite to manifest the Goddess potential in society and throughout the human race.[1] Cameron identified herself with the Scarlet Woman, as did those around her.[2]
After further magical workings together, Parsons, Hubbard and Cameron felt that they had conceived a Moonchild, as described in the novel of the same name by Aleister Crowley, although no physical child was born.[3] They were referring to a spiritual entity. However it should also be noted that Cameron did have a very real abortion which was illegal at the time.[4] If the name moon child indicates a 14 night gestational period, than this would be before bilateral symmetry would have formed, which is the ideal time for an embryonic stem cell transplant; a period where the embryo could potentially split into two or fuse into its twin.[5] It takes 14 nights for the moon to go from full to new or vice versa; which is also referenced in one version of the raising of Osiris by Isis Eygtologists would have been familiar with.[6] Paradoxically, at times Cameron herself was referred to as an incarnation of Babalon by Parsons, and later claimed this identity for herself, saying she had given birth to a spiritual child.[7] Cameron wavered in her devotion to the occult with sojourns to a Switzerland convent and, in 1948, to Mexico where she went to pursue her art. She settled for a time in San Miguel de Allende. During her Mexico period, Parsons sent Cameron a remarkable series of letters instructing her further in magical practices. In 1950 she returned to her husband who was working at that time in explosives research for Hughes Aircraft. Parsons' occult practices led to extended investigations by the F.B.I, and the termination of his government defense work. In 1952, the couple's plans to leave the country for Mexico were tragically ended when Parsons was killed in a freakish explosion in his Pasadena garage laboratory caused by his dropping a container of fulminate of mercury.
Art and acting [edit]
Like many women interested in magic, such as Ithell Colquhoun, Vali Myers, Rosaleen Norton and the surrealist Leonora Carrington, Cameron was also an artist. Her art depicts many images of an otherworldly nature drawn from the Elemental Kingdom and the astral plane.
She played a prominent role in Kenneth Anger's film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, again as the Scarlet Woman. She also appeared in two films of Curtis Harrington, his ten-minute 1956 portrait, The Wormwood Star, which focused on Cameron and her artwork,[8][7] and Night Tide (1961), where Cameron starred as a mysterious woman credited as 'Water Witch'. A brief excerpt from The Wormwood Star can be seen by searching YouTube under "House of Harrington Part 1" (the excerpt runs from 6:19 to 7:04).
See also [edit]
Notes [edit]
- ^ [1] Joan D'Arc, Phenomenal World, Book Tree, 2000, ISBN 1-58509-128-6, p.133
- ^ [2] Butler, Brian. Book of Lies. The Disinformation Company, 2003, ISBN 0-9713942-7-X p.207
- ^ [3] Knowles, Christopher (2007) Our Gods Wear Spandex p.98
- ^ [4]
- ^ Stem cell controversy
- ^ [5]
- ^ Carter, J. Sex and Rockets, Feral House, 1999
- ^ [6] Book of Lies p.209
References [edit]
- Carter, John with an introduction by Wilson, Robert Anton, Sex and Rockets, (1999) Feral House
- Kansa, Spencer. Wormwood Star: The Magickal life of Marjorie Cameron Mandrake UK, 2009.
External links [edit]
- Cameron-Parsons Foundation
- Brian Butler "Cameron: The Wormwood Star" [8]
- Marjorie Cameron at the Internet Movie Database
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