"Apparently Parsons and Hubbard or somebody is producing a moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts."
—In a letter from Crowley to Karl Germer, re: their attempt to summon the Whore of Babylon
"[The angel] carried my spirit away to the desert. I saw the scarlet woman sitting on the beast with seven heads and ten horns, covered with blasphemous names. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and gilded with gold and precious stones and pearls, with a golden cup in her hand filled with the abominations and the unclean things of her fornication. On her forehead a name had been written, 'A Mystery: Babalon the great, the mother of harlots and of the abominations of the earth.' I saw the woman was drunk from the blood of the saints, and from the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. Seeing her, I wondered greatly."
Revelations 17:3-6
Aleister Crowley joined the Golden Dawn, which is actually a front for "other forces." These other forces can depend on the game. When the GD self-destructed, Aleister wanders around a bit. Eventually, several things happen: He is recruited by British Intelligence to bleed German occultists of information, he forms the OTO, he spreads his, uh, gospel.
Eventually, Jack Parsons gets involved. To put it bluntly, Parsons buys into everything Crowley says. He eventually meets a guy by the name of Lafayette Ronald Hubbard. Hubbard (and if there's a Scientologist on the list, forgive me for blaspheming the "man") is a con-artist at heart. A lot of evidence at the time points to him pulling a grift on the Army fordisability. While he doesn't really know anything about magic(k) he does know how to listen and nod at the right times, and agree with what Parson's got to say, which is key. They both talk about the Bible, and discuss Crowley's coming Age of Horus. They see a link between the Book of Revelations and the Age of Horus, and see the negative light of Revelations as merely Christian propaganda.
Parsons, all this time, has some money. That's really what Hubbard is after. (Or he could be a Mask of Nyarlathotep. I'll tie Scientology to the Mythos a bit later…) But, Hubbard sees the true power in what Crowley has taught Parsons (or what Parsons has learned.) They create a plan to summon a moonchild, which they said means a "Scarlet Woman," to either a) embody Babalon or b) have a child, whose soul will be forced out by Babalon. Accounts differ and I'm not clear on which is which.
Crowley gets wind of this and thinks the two are morons. But just in case, he alerts allies in British intelligence interested in the occult. Crowley naturally would've been at odds with the Thule, and it's an easy jump to assume that he would know something of the "covert, occult war" that DG and the Brits fought against the Nazis. While not important now, eventually DG will decide Parsons is too loose a cannon, and five years after the Babalon summoning will arrange for Parsons to "drop" some nitroglycerin in his barn/lab. End of problem.
So they do the summoning, which is successful. A scarlet woman enters into their life, Hubbard steals her after ripping Parsons off in Florida, they steal a boat to get away from him, Parsons summons a storm which brings them back to Florida, he gets a little of his money back, he eventually meets another Scarlet woman, he dies tragically.
But, going with an idea I brought up on the Catholicism thread, within the ritual to summon up a Scarlet woman is "masked" a ritual to really bring forth a symbol feminine power over men…the ability to propitiate her foul race, the ability to excite lusts and manipulate power. Call her Shub-Niggurath, call her Lilith, whatever. But beneath the California desert, a piece of her power manifests in the form of a hideous womb. From the womb springs forth foul births, which cultists hiding under and within various cities transport. Over the years, these colonies of Lililm begin to spread.
Meanwhile, besides the Womb, Lilith/Shub-Niggurath/babalon begins to "innocently" corrupt those around her. Twenty years after the initial summoning, a madman and his "family" travel to the same area of the desert, springing forth only to murder. Sharon Tate's innocent, unborn babe completes the misunderstood moonchild ritual, spelling the true beginning to the Age of Horus. The End Times. Across the country, serial killings increase as the madness of Lilith spreads. Odd behaviors begin to appear. Memories of false satanic abuse begin to pop up, actually dream images of the Babalon beneath the sands. And in covens and cults all across the country, the Lililm rejoice, for the great birthing is at hand.
And Hubbard, who Delta Green underestimated all those years ago by ignoring, has set up a religion whose very purpose is to gather temporal power. To convert the famous and powerful. A religion who's members have bugged the offices of the FBI, driven to destruction hundreds of individuals. A religion that is a financial mystery cult. To see it's highest level texts, you must pay a 1000 dollars an hour. These texts will push a person into an enlightened state, and have been known to cure/cause insanity. Many of the religions tenets are borrowed from Crowley, who borrowed from the Golden Dawn, who borrowed from a mystic named Stephen Alzis in the 1860s.
And at it's heart, the religion says that the religions worshipper's are people who are "enlightened souls from beyond space and time," and that any who oppose you should be stopped by any means necessary. Think about it.
Credits
Based on material submitted to the DGML by Eric Brennan.