Anthony Testa - The Key of the Abyss.pdf

Betty Northrup had run off with Hubbard, taking most of Parsons’
savings which had been sunk into a “investment’ company and Jack
had gone after them. As Grant says in Magical Revival, it appears that
Parsons “had the makings of a real Magician” and this shows he could
also perform “results” magick with success.
1949 - Parsons swears the Oath of the Abyss, undertakes the “Black
Pilgrimage”. He adopts the (absurd) name Belarion, Antichrist and
writes the Manifesto of Antichrist.
1952 – on June 17 th Parsons, having recently reconciled with Marjorie
Cameron was preparing for a trip to Mexico. For reasons unknown, he
was experimenting with explosive chemicals and dropped a container
of fulminate of mercury. The resulting explosion was powerful and
devastating, destroying most of the coach house. Parsons was
seriously injured; horrifically enough, though, he was still conscious
when his rescuers got to him. He died an hour later, in hospital.
Controversy has remained over his death. Many regarded it as highly
unlikely that a scientist of his experience could so mishandle such a
powerful explosive. 162
So ends the life of Jack Whiteside Parsons. There is no shortage of
theories regarding what “really” happened and they all more or less
follow (as such opinions must) the predisposition of those that hold
them. Crowley, as shown in the letters quoted above, considered
Parsons a failure, on the par with Charles Stansfield Jones and Victor
Neuberg. Jones, interestingly, discovered the (or, really, as we will see,
“a”) key to the Book of the Law, was acknowledged by Crowley as the
“Child of thy Bowels” who was prophesized in the Book. Jones’
downfall (he took the name “Achad” meaning One in Hebrew) was in
“rashly” taking the Oath of the Abyss which, we have seen, Parsons
also swore (after Crowley’s death) not long before his own untimely
demise.
162
Sorcerer of the Apocalypse by Michael Staley in Apocalypse Culture, Adam Parfrey, Ed.
Second Edition, Feral House.
114