The Scarlet Woman: Diane, Cameron, and Sex Magick

[page 71] Abstract: One of the more dark and confusing moments of Twin Peaks: The Return is the sex scene between Diane Evans and Dale Cooper in the series finale. Though disturbing and awkward, this moment of coitus is essential to the plot and can be viewed as part of a plan to rid Twin Peaks of the negative energy that seems to have permeated it. Speculations of sex magick and comparisons of Diane to the historical painter Marjorie Cameron immediately appeared in online discourse following the airing of the series. Indeed, by analyzing the sex scenes in The Return, the events in Part 8 and a sublot in the apocryphal The Secret History of Twin Peaks, Diane can be connected to Cameron––and by extension the occult concept known as the “Scarlet Woman.” This research explores the parallels between Cameron as the Scarlet Woman in occult history, and Diane Evans as the same avatar in The Return.

Keywords: sex, occult, magick, mysticism, apotheosis, gateway

“Sex is a doorway to something so powerful and mystical, but movies usually depict it in a completely flat way.” - David Lynch

Two dark depictions of sex bookend Twin Peaks: The Return: hot-and-heavy youths (Benjamin Rosenfield and Madeline Zima) are torn to pieces by an apparition in Part 1, and a fire-haired Diane Evans (Laura Dern) is uncomfortably joined with FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan) set to 1950’s pop in Part 18. By reflecting on Diane’s restorative journey while looking more deeply into events in Part 8 and the related subtext of The Secret History of Twin Peaks (2016) novel by Mark Frost, these sex scenes can be seen as functional to the plot of ridding Twin Peaks of the extreme negative force known as Judy or “Jowday.” Indeed, narrative elements of The Return are impossible to speak of in absolutes; however, these points of interest are connected to the historical figure of surrealist painter Marjorie Cameron and, by extension, to the oc-[page 72]cult concept known as the “Scarlet Woman.” Sex magick speculation and comparisons of Diane to Cameron immediately followed the 2017 airing of The Return.1  Reddit user “Wilson Keel” notes Cameron’s “striking red hair, chain smoking, cantankerous personality, and self-portrait called The Black Egg” and states, “it seems impossible that all of these parallels between her and Diane are just coincidence” (see Figure 1). Film critic and Twin Peaks scholar Franck Boulègue definitively declares in Unwrapping the Plastic, “Diane’s red hair is no accident: it visually connects her to Marjorie Cameron, The Scarlet Woman[, and] Babalon”2 (see Figure 2). Boulègue also believes that the conjugal moment between Diane and Cooper is “really a moment of sex magick, a way to open a portal.”

[page 73] References to Cameron in Frost’s The Secret History pinpoint where he and co-creator David Lynch jointly drew inspiration for the 18-hour saga—a meeting in the desert, as it were. One of the book’s vignettes follows Cameron’s rocket-scientist husband Jack Parsons, who performed a series of rituals known as the Babalon Working. In history, Parsons believed that Cameron appeared in his life as a result of this process, materializing as his Scarlet Woman or the human embodiment of the feminine deity known as Babalon (Pendle 264). Though the “Scarlet Woman” nomenclature is never used in The Secret History, nor is this occult concept ever described, Frost cemented a connection by including a small but conspicuous crop of Cameron taken from experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger’s 1954 Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (260)—an image of a painter, muse, and artist that conceivably haunts Lynch as well.

Public friction between the two creators regarding the canonical nature of Frost’s novel often complicates Twin Peaks discourse. Lynch reportedly has not read the companion novels and has explicitly stated that they are Frost’s history of Twin Peaks (O’Neal), while Frost dismisses the concept of canon being relevant to the series altogether (Durant and Kozaczka). It is also worth noting that all direct references to Cameron, Parsons, Aleister Crowley, and Thelema in the Twin Peaks universe come solely from Frost’s novel. The subsequent analysis will treat The Secret History as apocrypha. It is an unofficial Twin Peaks release according to David Lynch, but its contents are relevant because it comes from the mind of Mark Frost, series co-creator and co-writer of The Return, whom Lynch has credited as being “at least 50% of it” when speaking on the series (“A Slice”).

With this creative dynamic in mind, the following will explore Marjorie Cameron’s place in occult history, including her role in the Babalon Working as Parson’s Scarlet Woman. By comparing Cameron to Diane, this essay will frame Twin Peaks as a mystical odyssey and the final sex act of The Return [page 74] as a ritual intended to lure Jowday through a metaphysical doorway.

Diane, The Secret History and Babalon

Part 1 of The Return shows two lovers at the site of a secret New York experiment (a Manhattan project, if you will) who have sex near a glass box that can be gleaned as a doorway to behind the curtain. A demonic, feminine figure appears, escapes, and mauls them to death. With an insinuation that this force, credited as The Experiment, is attracted to sex, the new tale of Twin Peaks begins. As The Return continues, visual and audio connections reveal “The Experiment” to in fact be Jowday—the underlying conflict in the narrative according to a plan divulged by FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole (David Lynch).

Part 6 of The Return revealed a very blonde Diane Evans in the flesh for the first time, to the delight of Twin Peaks fans. After being referenced constantly but never seen in the original series (1990-1991) or in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992), Cooper’s former assistant and confidant is immediately established as an ill-tempered, independent woman pursued by many suitors. Diane is asked to assist the Blue Rose Task Force in investigating the exploits of Cooper’s doppelgänger, Mr. C (also MacLachlan) and spends the majority of the series drinking and smoking with a chip on her shoulder. She is also presented as a conflicted character in behavior, aesthetic, and allegiance throughout. Following Part 7’s foreboding and intense interrogation, suspicion begins to build in Part 9 that Diane is a double agent of sorts. She is clearly serving as a spy for Mr. C while simultaneously helping the FBI track his whereabouts. On a psychological level, Diane is seemingly at odds with herself. She coldly responds to her master's orders, while also acting in earnest to benefit Cole and the FBI. Suggested to have more than one side, Diane often wears double bracelets, and in one instance, she wears a top that is adorned with dual dragons. These fissures inside her reach critical mass in Part 16, when Diane is ordered to assassinate [page 75] the Blue Rose team in the South Dakota hotel and emotionally breaks down while revealing that she was sexually assaulted and ostensibly put under Mr. C’s control years prior. Thwarted in completing her mission, she vanishes after being shot, and it is revealed that Diane up to this point was in fact not the real Diane, but a tulpa—a manufactured being like Dougie Jones (also MacLachlan).3  Though believed to be gone forever, Diane returns in a different form and with a final part to play in Part 17 when plot points converge at the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Station.

Part 8, the near-midpoint of The Return, showcases a flashback to the detonation of the first nuclear device in 1945, known as the Trinity Test. After the explosion (a literal intercourse between two worlds), a floating creature also credited as The Experiment spews forth the BOB orb and a substance not unlike other characters after an electromagnetic disturbance.4 Twin Peaks co-creator and The Return co-writer Frost specifically chose to spend time in this period of American history after writing of the series. Frost’s novel was released in October of 2016, several months before the airing of The Return. The book contains a seemingly endless number of connecting points, including sparse references to the Manhattan Project and “the bomb”—planting seeds for readers that would come to bear visual fruit. A 30-plus page section entitled “The Coming of What?” picks up the story of Major Douglas Milford, who is sent to investigate Jet Propulsion Laboratory co-founder and engineer Jack Parsons at the behest of then-Representative Richard Nixon, who sat on the House Un-American Activities Committee. The inquiry comes after Nixon interviews future Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who recounts events beginning in August of 1945, one month after the Trinity Test (Frost 239-271).

Marvel “John” Whiteside Parsons was an enigmatic historical figure who, in addition to being a brilliant chemist and rocket fuel pioneer, was a devout follower of British occultist Aleister Crowley and his mystical religion Thelema.5  In Conversations With Mark Frost, the Twin Peaks co-creator told [page 76] author David Bushman that he saw these ideas as “relevant to what we were working with on Season Three,” and to “foreshadow where we were headed, to suggest a way of interpreting what [the audience was] about to see.” When asked if Lynch’s interpretation of the events in Part 8 were similar, Frost said, “It seemed in concert when we were writing, but I can’t vouch for what he was thinking or where he went with some of it afterward” (262-263). Like the majority of The Secret History, “The Coming of What?” presents a fictionalized version of historical events. Hubbard did in fact reside with Parsons and others at the communal Agape Lodge mansion, sometimes called “The Parsonage.” In the fictional interview with Nixon, Hubbard explains that he observed “the practice of free love and the periodic enactment of bizarre ‘sex magick rituals’” and goes on to present Parsons as a threat to national security (243-244). Now adept at exploring supernatural phenomena, Major Milford is sent to investigate. He poses as a journalist and comes face to face (in a coffee shop, no less) with Parsons, who divulges that he and Hubbard had been conducting ritual work in the New Mexico desert. Having been stationed in Roswell, Milford replies, “That’s where they tested the bomb,” to which Parsons responds, “Such a fertile ground for the Working. The Working of Babalon. Calling forth the Elemental.” The conversation is cut short by the sound of a car horn, and “a striking, Technicolor redhead” is seen behind the wheel of a Buick roadster convertible (253-256).

Based in part on ideas put forth by Crowley in his 1917 novel Moonchild (also referenced in The Secret History), the historical Babalon Working was a magickal operation designed by Parsons to bring about an “Elemental”—one he believed was the embodiment the Thelemic goddess Babalon (Carter 124). Annotations in the Twin Peaks novel explain that Crowley’s Thelema borrowed from and reinterpreted the biblical, apocalyptic Book of Revelation, which includes a vision of the “Whore of Babylon” (Frost 258).6 In Thelema, Babalon (spelled with an “A” instead of a “Y”) is also the Mother of Abominations but is seen as a powerful feminine force—the divine rep-[page 77]resentation of women and the embodiment of sexual liberation (Crowley, Liber 74-75).7 With Parsons as “High Priest” and Hubbard as “Scribe,” the historical Working moved from the Parsonage to the Mojave Desert in early 1946. They descended upon Parsons’s favorite location for meditation and magick consisting of two intersecting power lines emitting a constant, ominous drone (Pendle 262). At sunset, Parsons felt a snap in tension; believing “in absolute certainty that the operation was accomplished,” he then returned to his home in Pasadena to find a young woman waiting (Pendle 263); his Scarlet Woman had arrived, and 70 years later the name “Marjorie Cameron” entered the Twin Peaks lexicon under an emblazoned image in the margins of The Secret History (260).

Cameron, the Scarlet Woman

Fresh out of the military with an honorable discharge, Marjorie Cameron arrived at 1003 Orange Grove Avenue in early 1946—setting her on a trajectory to become an icon of occult history and 1950s counterculture. The talented 23-year-old artist (who would come to refer to herself directly as “Cam-er-on”) was born in 1922 and raised in the small town of Belle Plaine, Iowa. Cameron described herself as the “town pariah” after the suicide of one of her closest friends in high school and enlisted as a Navy WAVE after graduation (Laden). After working in the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during World War II, the magnetic redhead relocated to the Los Angeles area with her family and was supplementing unemployment benefits by illustrating newspaper women's fashions when fate brought her to the steps of The Parsonage (Lipschutz 9). The Secret History repeats the legend that “she was actually waiting at his front door” (261), though historic accounts differ as to precisely how and when she first met Parsons. Regardless of circumstance, Cameron Parsons Foundation head Scott Hobbs said, “It was love at first sight.” She moved in that night and the new couple notoriously spent the next two weeks together in bed. Believing she was the Scarlet Woman for whom he had been waiting, Parsons renamed her “Candida,” [page 78] or “Candy,” and they were married within six months (Hobbs). With his “Elemental” at his side, Parsons believed that the arrival of the goddess of love and sexual power was at hand—the Babalon Working could truly begin. He said in a letter to Crowley, “I am to invoke continually, this now being possible and easy” (qtd. in Pendle 264).

In contemporary terms, Scarlet Woman is used pejoratively to describe a prostitute or a woman known for having many sexual encounters. Here, Crowley used a traditional slur for sinfulness as an office of Thelema and had multiple partners in his life who fulfilled this role. The Red Goddess (2007) author Peter Grey notes that Crowley “left a rich legacy” but openly challenges Thelema’s misogyny in using Scarlet Women in sex magick. He states that Crowley both “champions the rights of women and liberty” and also “treats women with contempt, as ignorant vessels for his glorious sperm” (102-103). Indeed, Cameron claimed to be unaware of Parsons’s magickal intentions during their love-making and said in interviews that he and Hubbard had “worked with me without telling me what was going on. Everybody assumes that I was in on it. But I didn't know” (Laden). Despite her ignorance and probable derision of Parsons’s objectives at the time (Pendle 264), Cameron’s life and art immediately began taking on elements of the mystical, starting with her first known canvas—Dr. Dee from 1946—based on alchemist and Elizabethan court astrologer John Dee (Lipschutz 10).

After one more trip to the desert, Parsons believed that the Babalon Working had been accomplished, and his home was sold to developers shortly thereafter (Pendle 266). Cameron and Parsons stayed together throughout an open and tumultuous marriage until they were separated by tragedy. “The Coming of What?” makes another reference to a “striking redhead” when Major Milford returns for a follow-up visit with Parsons in 1952 and notices a photo of Cameron on his wall. The Secret History then explains with historical accuracy that the couple had been planning a trip to Mexico just before Parsons was killed as a result of a chemical explosion which [page 79] authorities believed to be accidental. The Los Angeles press

went wild with stories of sex cults, and conspiracy theories abound to this day as to the circumstances surrounding his death, theories which are also played up in The Secret History (266-270). Parsons had indeed been under FBI scrutiny in his final years, and Cameron herself believed that her husband’s death was the result of foul play (Laden). She would later scatter his ashes in the Mojave Desert under the electrical drone of two intersecting power lines (Pendle 300). While she was haunted by Parsons's death for the rest of her life, Cameron slowly began pursuing his magickal work, devoting herself to the teachings of Crowley and the O.T.O. (Duncan), eventually believing that she was indeed Babalon incarnate (Lipschutz 9-10).

Cameron would go on to become a commanding presence in 1950’s avant-garde cinema, serving as muse for experimental filmmakers like Curtis Harrington and Kenneth Anger, whose work is often cited as prefiguring the work of Lynch (Coulthart). Art imitated life when Cameron performed as the Scarlet Woman and the Hindu goddess Kali in Anger’s 1954 Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome.8  It is in this authoritative work that visual similarities can be seen between Cameron as the Scarlet Woman and Diane's manifestation at the end of The Return. These depictions share flaming red hair and eyebrows, a mouth slightly open with ruby lips, and giant eyelashes ornamenting a bright-eyed gaze. In addition, Cameron wears a shawl with a floral pattern similar to Diane’s night shirt (see Figure 3). Inauguration is also the source of the still frame of Cameron as Kali that was used to represent her in The Secret History, appropriately displayed in the margins as a red, monochromatic print (260; see Figure 4). Again, there is a piercing, otherworldly stare, and her dark wig seems aflame with the crimson smoke of the Great Beast and background bacchanalia—a superimposed image like the face of Agent Cooper in Part 17. Finally, Kali bares a naked breast as her shawl hangs off her shoulder akin to Diane’s dangling bathrobe (see Figure 4). [page 80]

Before the close of the 1950s, Cameron again sparked controversy, not by being associated with orgies and deadly explosions but with an inflammatory piece of art. In 1955, after hearing a lecture by The Doors of Perception (1954) author Aldous Huxley, Cameron took a large dose of peyote for the first time (Duncan). She said that her experience with Parsons’s preferred drug caused the walls to disappear followed by a sickness that had her bed-ridden and by the creation of “Peyote Vision,” an ink line drawing of a serpentine woman in the act of coitus with an alien figure (Laden). Artist and experimental filmmaker Wallace Berman featured a photo of Cam-[page 81]eron and a print of “Peyote Vision” in the premiere issue of his art journal Semina in 1957.9 With “Peyote Vision” and a work presented in a later issue of Semina titled “June 2, 1962,” perhaps another connection can be made to Lynch. Considering their importance in the history of Los Angeles underground art, it is possible (though certainly speculative) that the surrealist painter-turned-director was influenced by Cameron’s pieces bubbling up as inspiration for the crimson nightmare scene in Lost Highway (1997), which was filmed shortly after Cameron’s death in 1995 (Wallace). Lynch’s imagery, like “Peyote Vision,” depicts a woman with mangled hair and heavily lined eyes mounted from behind by a faceless entity, similar to “June 2, 1962” (see Figure 5). The saturation of red is also reminiscent of Cameron as Kali from Anger’s Inauguration who, again, is often cited as a precursor to Lynch (Brown).

Her edgy, surrealist paintings and memorable film appearances solidified Cameron as an iconic figure in both the counterculture of the time and the Scarlet Woman legend of occult history. Parsons biographer George Pendle said that Cameron’s husband had prophesied her as this avatar who “was to bring about a new libertarian age of free love and anti-authoritarianism, a world vision that was fulfilled, to a certain extent, [page 82] with the arrival of the '60s” (Laden). She remained in California until her death and finally joined Parsons when her ashes were also scattered in the Mojave Desert (Lipschutz 17).

Today, Cameron’s work is receiving proper recognition with a string of posthumous gallery exhibitions beginning with Beat Culture and the New America at New York’s Whitney Museum in 1996. The Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art hosted Songs For The Witch Woman, a definitive solo exhibit with an accompanying book release in 2014, followed by New York and Beverly Hills exhibits in 2015 and 2020 respectively. With the Cameron Parsons Foundation serving as archivists, Cameron’s presence continues to permeate popular culture, including a representation in the final episode of Amazon’s Lore titled “Jack Parsons: The Devil and the Divine,” coincidentally starring Twin Peaks actress Alicia Witt. 

Diane, The Return, and Jowday

Narrative threads begin to come together in the runup to the final events of The Return, starting with an information dump from FBI Deputy Director Cole in the opening of Part 17. Just before speeding off to Twin Peaks, Cole divulges the existence of an “extreme negative force” called “Jowday” (now known as “Judy”) and says that he, Cooper, and Major Garland Briggs (Don S. Davis) had in the past come up with a plan to “deal with this entity.” Cole, who sits in front of an atomic bomb photograph (Part 3 and Part 7), has been revealed as the character in the narrative who defines Judy, and it can now be reasonably deduced that Jowday, the creature seen reacting to the nuclear blast credited as The Experiment in Part 8 and the The Experiment from Part 1 are one and the same. It’s also worth noting that Frost acknowledged a connection between these three ideas after the airing of The Return (Reed). With Jowday appearing in New York during intercourse in Part 1 as well as the Cameron and Babalon Working implications in The Secret History, a solid foundation exists for the argument for the invoking power of sex in this iteration of the Twin Peaks story. [page 83]

At the Twin Peaks Sheriff’s Station, the newly awakened Cooper sends his doppelgänger back to the Black Lodge once and for all. Triggered by the sight of the mysterious being Naido, his now fully formed consciousness watches unfolding events from behind the curtain. Just before he bids farewell to the friends he met along the way, Naido approaches, touches Cooper’s hand and through metamorphosis is revealed to be a healed and complete Diane Evans.10 With this materialization of his ideal woman or partner, the Scarlet Woman of occult history and Anger’s Inauguration finally collides with the Scarlet Woman of The Return. As previously noted, both share vibrant red hair, ruby lips, and a penetrating stare, while floral patterns adorn both Diane’s white pajamas and Cameron’s black shawl (see Figure 6).

Another interesting parallel is Diane’s transformative cocoon, a flesh-wrapped black oval which can be compared in both color and concept to Cameron’s undated “Black Egg” painting (Lipschutz 61) (see Figure 7).

Cooper and Diane smile wide for the first time in decades before a passionate kiss. The celebration is short lived, however, as Diane notices that time or timelines are holding at 2:53, signifying an open window;11 they are next seen hand-in-hand alongside Cole in the boiler room of the Great Northern. [page 84]

Cooper slips through another doorway, and after what feels like a failed attempt to rescue Laura Palmer in the past, is allowed to leave the Red Room in the present after being trapped there for 25 years. Diane is waiting for him at Glastonbury Grove and is presented as mended in both character and aesthetic. Perhaps most significant is that she now wears a single red band (seen only once on the table in her apartment) instead of the two Bakelite bangles that her tulpa wore in previous episodes.12 Her demeanor is also different; she no longer chain-smokes, and her underlying tension and anger seems to have subsided. The following dialogue and narrative context suggest that Diane is aware of Cooper’s intentions and is part of the plan spoken of by Cole to counter Jowday. Cooper asks her, “Do you remember everything?” after re-emerging from behind the curtain at Glastonbury Grove, and at the 430-mile mark, Diane pensively questions, “Are you sure you want to do this? You don’t know what it’s going to be like.” After a final kiss, however, she enters the portal of her own free will by affirming, “Let’s go.”

It is at this point in the 18-hour epic that the glass box in New York from Part 1 can be seen as mirroring the 430 gateway in Part 18, as they are nearly equidistant from the beginning and the end respectively. Writer David Auerbach posits [page 85] that, to “deal with this entity,” as Cole explained, they must “reenact this summoning ritual” to lure Jowday into this new dimension. While the young couple inadvertently lured the creature through copulation, the magician and the Scarlet Woman will attempt to do the same with intent. This unspoken objective explains the cold and awkward lack of pleasure on display by two characters who had recently shared a loving kiss. Boulègue concurs, explaining “this moment feels like the enactment of a ritual, with no joy, with closed faces.” It should be stated that Diane’s hesitancy and discomfort is almost certainly rooted in trauma. Though she ultimately goes through with it, Auerbach explains that Diane confronts herself one last time in a moment of dissociation in front of the motel before engaging with Cooper, to a large degree the same man who violated her years before.

Boulègue points out another juxtaposition in that the sex at the motel is very different from the humorous but intimate moment between Dougie and Janey-E (Naomi Watts) in Part 10, though both assume similar positions. The ‘50s-era romantic pop song “My Prayer” by the Platters plays and is underscored by a dark, sonic drone. Aside from also not “feeling” truly romantic, the song is in fact the 45 record that spins at the radio station upon the arrival of The Woodsman in Part 8—a final point of connection between the dark forces of Part 8 and the conjugation of Part 18.

To What End?

“It is done,” as Jack Parsons once declared (Pendle 263). Cooper awakens, Diane is gone, and the audience is reminded that—despite the coffee, cherry pie, quirky music, and cute clothes—Twin Peaks often puts its characters through hell, and The Return was an exercise in the subversion of expectations. Long-time fans of the series finally got to see Diane but were left to wrestle with the knowledge that she was raped by the person she probably cared most about; too, while her emotional struggle is presented as very real throughout, to what degree was she truly Diane Evans? Even more questions re-[page 86]main as to why she is not with Cooper in the morning. Was she removed by larger forces after her supposed role was fulfilled? Or perhaps she chose to no longer be a part of the story and literally wrote herself out of it? (McCarthy) It is a sad ending for a character whom the audience never really got to know. Following Diane’s departure, Cooper emerges from the hotel room into a new reality, one in which he seems to be named Richard. Contextual clues like the “Eat at Judy’s” diner, white horses, and an ominous presence inside the Palmer house suggest that this new world has been permeated by the presence of Jowday—the intended result of a sex magick ritual.

Dale Cooper continues on his path alone, but to what end? Like the fate of Diane, the series finale will no doubt be eternally subject to debate. Though the climax of The Return is ambiguous, it has been shown that the coitus in Manhattan, the Trinity Test, and the final sex act between Cooper and Diane are connected to Jowday in Lynch’s onscreen story, while Cameron, Parsons, and occult concepts like the Babalon Working serve as planted clues in Frost’s The Secret History for those willing to go deeper into the Twin Peaks mythos. Furthermore, Frost says that the concepts surrounding Crowley and Thelema (and, by extension, the Scarlet Woman) were relevant to what he and Lynch were developing for The Return, and he believed that Lynch was on board with these ideas during the writing process (Bushman 263). In occult history, Babalon is a powerful deity that symbolizes feminine divinity and embodies sexual liberation. Cameron too was a powerful woman in her own right, suited to be an inspiration for Diane. Parsons initially misrepresented his intentions to Cameron, and it is still arguably an act of brutality on Cooper’s part to use her in this way, though Diane retains her agency by entering the ritual of her own free will. In Twin Peaks, the Scarlet Woman is an occult fantasy swirled into the existential soup that is The Return, in which Diane Evans appears as this avatar to lure Jowday through an ethereal gateway by ritual. It is a tale of mad magicians who seek a goddess but summon a destroyer of worlds, and buried in the margins is the story of [page 87] a trailblazing artist named Marjorie Cameron whose life and work surely influenced David Lynch and Mark Frost as they were conjuring demons in the desert.

Notes

1. Occultist and ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley historically spelled magick with a “k” to “distinguish the Science of the Magic from all its counterfeits” i.e. to separate the arts of sorcery and mysticism from parlor tricks (Four Books 101).

2. Of course, the red hair and alternating black and white nail polish link her to the red curtains and the chevron floor of the Black Lodge, and the wig also ties her to Lil and the first mention of the Blue Rose in Fire Walk With Me; however, it’s worth remembering that sex in the desert, crimson apparitions, and doppelgängers with different colored haired all appear in Lost Highway and, like many elements of The Return, were already in Lynch’s wheelhouse.

3. Interestingly, this development had been foreshadowed by Albert Rosenfield in Part 14 while explaining to Tammy Preston the origin of the Blue Rose cases, and clued by a small, circular jewel affixed to one of Diane’s fingernails—a nod to her being generated from another tiny globe.

4. Part 8 is thus entrenched as an origin story and crowning achievement in Lynch’s oeuvre. Frost acknowledged that the atomic blast and subsequent scenes were “certainly different from a lot of the rest of the material” but emphasized, “we wrote it together” and that he “wouldn’t say it was distinctly different” than how it ended up on screen (Newman).

5. The practicing magician was a member and the eventual leader of the Agape Lodge, the American outpost of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO, succeeding Wilfred T. Smith in 1943 (Pendle 220-223).

6. According to The Red Goddess, occult author Peter Grey’s authoritative work on Babalon, her roots begin in ancient religions from the cradle of civilization. He explains that the “Holy Whore” sprung from the love, sex and war goddess archetype found in the Sumerian “Inanna” and Babylonian “Ishtar,” and her name in biblical Revelation is, in essence, a call back to the decadent city and rival to [page 88] Jerusalem from the Old Testament and Hebrew scripture (35-37).

7. The consort of the Beast appeared centuries later as the Scarlet Woman when Crowley channeled Thelema’s definitive Liber Al Vel Legis, or Book of the Law, in 1904 (Grey 105). Crowley’s Babalon and its new spelling first appeared in 1911’s The Vision and the Voice; however, Grey cites alchemist and astrologer John Dee and scribe Edward Kelley’s Enochian language as its origin,”Babalon'' meaning wicked and “Babalond” translated as harlot (Grey 86).

8. Inspired by a Malibu Halloween party called “Come As Your Madness,” Anger constructed the psychedelic film around the impersonation of gods and goddesses of antiquity; a magician awakens, deities are introduced, and elixir is consumed, culminating in an orgiastic display of color and superimposition. Anger told filmmaker Elio Gelmini, “I wanted the colors to reflect Aleister Crowley’s idea of color—which he thought colors were imbued with magickal powers” (“Anger Me”). Gary Lachman explains that the central theme of Inauguration is repression and inhibition giving way to Crowley’s new Aeon with a smattering of occult imagery featuring the Great Beast himself and the seven-pointed star of Babalon.

9. At the height of McCarthyism and sexual conservatism, the first exhibition at Berman’s Ferus Gallery was closed down by the Los Angeles Police Department for exhibiting pornography after officers observed an assemblage piece showcasing “Peyote Vision” and other pages of Semina. Regardless of her speculation that Berman had intentionally provoked the police (Laden), Cameron would never again display her art in commercial galleries (Duncan).

10. Introduced in Part 3, Naido (almost “O Dian[e]” backwards) aids Cooper in his attempted escape from the Black Lodge and ultimately sacrifices herself to set him on the right path, so to speak. In an episode of their Twin Peaks podcast, John Thorne describes Naido as the “absent Diane”—a metaphoric representation of the tape recorder from the original series, in that she does not see him but only hears his voice—and J. B. Minton notes that the squeaking noises that she makes are not unlike the sound of scrubbing a tape on an old Dictaphone. Thorne and Minton posit that Naido was “the container” or what remained [page 89] behind the curtain after Diane was broken by the doppelgänger. She, like Cooper, survived on the other side for 25 years to return as the “idealized Diane” after the destruction of Mr. C.

11. Behind-the-scenes footage filmed by Jason S, released as “The Number of Completion” with the 2017 Limited Event Series Blu-ray, interestingly shows Lynch hinting to Dern and MacLachlan that the dear friends could have had a brief-but-secret romantic relationship. In the same footage, Lynch and Dern discuss the numerical significance of 2:53 on the office clock: 2,5, and 3 add up to 10, the number of completion in Lynch’s mind.

12. The red-and-black color scheme of the “completed” Diane is also reminiscent of the black pocket recorder with red-labeled cassette tapes that Cooper used to record messages for her in the original television series.

Works Cited

“A Slice of Lynch.” Directed by Charles de Lauzirika, CBS Studios, 2007.

“Anger Me.” Directed by Elio Gelmini, A Few Steps, 2006.

Auerbach, David. “Twin Peaks Finale: A Theory of Cooper, Laura, Diane, and Judy.” Waggish, 7 Sept. 2017, waggish.org/2017/twin-peaks-finale/. Accessed 1 Apr. 2021.

Boulègue, Franck. “Sex Magick and the Scarlet Woman.” Unwrapping The Plastic, 7 Sept. 2017, unwrappingtheplastic.com/2017/09/07/sex-magick-the-scarlet-woman/. Accessed 9 Mar. 2021.

Brown, Mick. “Kenneth Anger: Where the Bodies Are Buried.” Esquire, 1 Mar. 2014, esquire.com/uk/culture/news/a5483/kenneth-anger/. Accessed 3 Apr. 2021.

Bushman, David. Conversations with Mark Frost: Twin Peaks, Hill Street Blues, and the Education of a Writer. Fayetteville Mafia Press, 2020.

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Jeremiah Beaver is a video producer based out of Indianapolis, Indiana. His professional background includes over 20 years in live music promotion, journalism, art design, and filmmaking. He is the writer and editor of Take the Ring, a YouTube channel of video essays, interviews and documentaries devoted to exploring all aspects of Twin Peaks. He is also an active Freemason who enjoys independent research and lecturing on the occult and mysticism.

MLA citation (print):

Beaver, Jeremiah. "The Scarlet Woman: Diane, Cameron, and Sex Magick." Supernatural Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Art, Media, and Culture, vol. 11, no. 2, 2026, pp. 71-91.