Kundalini, Kalas, and Qadeshim
This chapter analyzes how Babalon was articulated in the writings of the British occultist Kenneth Grant, who was briefly Crowley’s secretary. Influenced by Indian Tantra and Advaita Vedanta, Grant challenged Crowley’s understanding of sexual magic, and emphasized the magical primacy of the female sexual secretions (or kalas). Grant uses the terms “Babalon” and “Scarlet Woman” synonymously to denote the trained sexual priestess who exudes the kalas and transmits the tremendous power of the divine feminine. Grant’s interpretation of Babalon is, in some sense, biologistic, with female embodiment and genital morphology being central to his conceptualization of femininity in magic. However, Grant also presents one of the earliest critiques of androcentrism in Crowley’s magical system. His articulation of Babalon—and femininity—can be interpreted as an attempt to conceptualize femininity as something in itself, rather than being defined in relation to masculinity.