Gypsy Violins and Thelemic Tangles : Sir Shumule is not very ska

Don’t take all this too seriously. If I were truly the most powerful of Magicians, half of you would already be transformed into girls and the other half into bottles of Dom Pérignon. — Sir Shumule 

I wish to be reborn seven times in this life of mine, to ridicule even more enemies of Ra-hoor-khuit. — Sir Shumule 

Whenever you go out, we pick up the party where we left off. — Soror Jezebel, Letter to Sir Shumule, August 2024 e.v. 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

The friendly jest about the Romani people slipped into my previous post (“All that’s missing is a soundtrack of plaintive gypsy violins to complete the scene, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of Gypsies in this prison!”) has earned me accusations of (I quote) “outdated problematic stereotypes, in contradiction with the universalism of Thelema.” 

By the Holy Stèle! 

To accuse me of hostility toward the Romani community! 

Me, who hit puberty watching Julia Migenes in the role of Carmen and who considers Aleister Crowley’s La Gitana to be the most beautiful poem ever written in the English language! 

Not to mention that the music video for Shakira’s Gypsy never fails to incredibly stir my senses (though one might prefer Can’t Remember to Forget You…). 

Personally, I have only fond memories of the encounters I’ve had with the Romani community in this life… 

For example, I recall the Autumn of 2013 e.v.: 

A very good friend, a great aesthete and collector, had left me the keys to his villa in Grasse, which I occupied alone for a couple of weeks. 

The day before his return, as I was reading the Letters of Baron von Pollnitz over lunch, there were repeated rings at the gate… 

I checked the surveillance screen and was quite surprised to see Julia Migenes Johnson in her Carmen costume… 

I mean: a perfect lookalike, but for real, and barely in her twenties: ultra-Romani, ultra-attractive, ultra-obviously hot… 

I went to open the gate and noticed it was even more striking in person than on the screen… 

So, she told me she was selling I don’t know what, that her family did chair re-caning, etc. – Did I, by chance, have any chairs to restore? – “Plenty!” I exclaimed on a whim. – Could she see them to give me an estimate? – “Of course! Please, come in!” 

I knew full well (this old trick) that she was likely scoping out the place for a future burglary, and that my unfortunate friend could already say goodbye to his Regency furniture, his precious knick-knacks, and his master paintings!… 

Especially since, quickly achieving my aim, I spent the entire afternoon passionately making love to my bohemian girl in the owner’s bedroom (which I claimed as my own), where the most valuable items were kept… 

What delight!… 

Aleister Crowley, who had two thousand lovers, wrote his most beautiful poem (and the most beautiful poem in the English language of all time, as Kanye would say) to celebrate one night spent with a certain gitana… Mine was so fiery that she left me needing two physiotherapy sessions, roller-derby-girl-level bruises, and a month on Fungizone… what a beautiful adventure… 

Alas! Barely recovered from a final orgasm (which, by the way, I mistook for the onset of a stroke), I heard my visitor say that we were now “promised,” and that her entire family would come to settle in “my” big house… 

She added, in a dark and far-from-reassuring tone, that her brothers and cousins “wouldn’t understand if [I] didn’t take [her] in” after everything I’d done to her that afternoon… 

How did I get out of it? 

In the simplest way possible!… The flood of endorphins gave me a cherubic, innocent look… I murmured sweetly: “Of course, my darling: call them to come for dinner, I’ll go do the shopping for the party – meat or fish? – make yourself at home…” – and I slipped away without a second thought… 

Naturally, I haven’t tried to contact my host since, so I’ve never learned the end of the story… 

Much later, when I recounted these events to my cousin Abigail (who lives on Summit Drive, at the bottom of the hill), she exclaimed: “De-plor-able! For a fan of Can’t Remember to Forget You, you’re not very ska!… You’re not ska at all!!!” 

Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD. 

Warm kisses from the Bahamas. 

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 8° ♊︎ : ☽︎ in 17° ♋︎ : ♃︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

From Zug With Love Under Will

Jimmy Page, Kenneth Anger, and Enki Bilal are the three greatest Thelemites produced by the Boomer Generation; Sir Shumule is the greatest Thelemite since Rabelais, across all generations. — Frater Sicariōn, Letter to Soror Jezebel, May 19, 2025 e.v. 

If you find yourself in the belly of the whale, like Jonah or Pinocchio, stand up through its blowhole as if it were the sunroof of a limousine, raise your arms, and shout: "Wahoooouuuuuuuuuuhhh!!!!" — Sir Shumule 

Hadit lies coiled, nestled in all things, even the most subaqueous, the most abyssal, and there is a star hidden in every man and every woman, including Cancer natives or bailiffs. Okay, maybe not bailiffs, but this principle is the first axiom stated in the Book of the Law (AL 1, 3). — Sir Shumule 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

A weekend in prison is no fun in any era or latitude, and if you add the fine drizzle of a meteorologically disastrous May, it can even become downright grim. 

By the Holy Stèle! Why so many gray clouds this morning?! They should only entrust the controls of the HAARP system to aesthetes — If I am the ultra-Narcissus you claim, life is a stage for me — and if life is a stage, I demand better lighting! 

Yes, your old Shumule — Shumule the Playful! Shumule the Radiant! Shumule, king of viscounts! — whose unwavering youthful motto ("you can have fun anywhere") had, until now, never been disproven, has finally found captivity tiresome, and these days, he’s been feeling as spleenful as a homesick decadent-neoclassical poet from the early twentieth century... 

I mean to say: I am a Thelemite despot in exile, Prometheanly chained in the mists of the Old Grey Land — All that’s missing is a soundtrack of plaintive gypsy violins to complete the scene, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of Gypsies in this prison! — Truth be told, I’m monstrously bored — Incarceration is torture by boredom, and I think I’d prefer waterboarding, I who never drink water! 

Indeed, all you meet here are abyssal creatures painted by Hieronymus Bosch on psilocybin! I’m bored, which is rare in front of a Bosch canvas — Nearly two and a half years pacing the corridors of this prison, and I still haven’t found the bar! — Don’t forget, the press describes me as a "mystic debauchee": if I can no longer debauch, all that’s left is the mystic! And a sober mystic! A teetotaling mystic! Almost a Taliban!— Or worse: a Mormon! 

That’s cruel and unusual treatment! Imagine, they even go so far as to forbid me from wearing, in my cell, my Chopard Ice Cube watch, kept hermetically locked in the prison’s locker room safe! 

Yet, the object I cherish most in this world is that watch, given to me by the greatest love of my life. 

In normal times, I tend to the care and security of this treasure with maniacal devotion!!! 

Please do me the honor of believing that, since the end of my romance with the one who gifted it to me, I’ve indulged in every dialect!... I’ve bedded pearl-adorned socialites from great Western families, under the lecherous gaze of candaulist husbands!... I’ve whipped penitents!... I’ve uncorked Lolitas, ravished coke-fueled night owls, Slavic escorts, and fierce tomboys!... 

But nothing has managed to diminish the intensity of the downright religious fervor I devote to this watch and what it represents… 

So I was lamenting last Friday, on the verge of giving in to despair, when a guard, a young, sporty, badass chick type, indescribably hot — provided, of course, you have a taste for young, sporty badass chicks — a taste I personally have to the point of obsession, burst into my cell (which I’ve arranged into a sort of cozy symbolist boudoir). 

I exclaimed upon seeing her: “Why didn’t I marry a prison guard?!” — which wasn’t exactly a display of sharp intellect or penetrating psychology on my part… 

I have NO psychology… 

Yet psychology is a simple thing, resting on two fundamental principles: 

1. When you’re about to spend the night at a club, don’t tell your parents, “See ya, don’t wait up for dinner!” but say: “I’m attending a prayer vigil for Rwanda; it might run late into the night.” 

2. When Anne-Aubépine de Choiseul-Harcourt introduces you to her family on rue de la Pompe, you must tell your future mother-in-law: “I am a member of the Académie Française,” not: “I have a thirty-centimeter dick” — When it’s Nassima Djebbar, a tough-as-nails girl from the northern neighborhoods of Marseille, introducing you to her cousins, it’s the opposite — Woe to you if you get it wrong — In one case, you’ll cast a chill; in the other, they’ll make you eat your bicorne. 

“Why didn’t I marry a prison guard?!” 

Perhaps, indeed, I made the gravest mistake of my life by not marrying a prison guard… But how could I have known?… Can you imagine me announcing, back then, to Maman and Bonne-Maman, who were cousins to Beistegui, that my fiancée is a prison guard?! 

It’s truly regrettable — I imagine the naughty games at home in the evening when she comes back from her shift: 

“David, I found the bed unmade again with the breakfast tray on it, cocktail glasses all over the living room, and you snorting coke with your school buddies by the pool instead of studying for your exams… I’ve already given you two warnings: this time, I have to write you up…” 

[Me:] “Oh no, please, Officer! Not a report! It would ruin all my hopes of parole!” 

[Her:] “Sorry. I can’t do anything for you.” 

[Me:] “I beg you! I’ll do anything you want!” 

[Her:] “Really anything?…” etc. 

By the immortal gods! Back then, I would’ve made love to my pretty jailer twelve times in a row after a scene like that (with her keeping her uniform on, naturally)!!!

Young, party-loving dandies from fine families, don’t make the same mistake I did: marry a prison guard while there’s still time; it’ll be wildly unexpected in your entry in the Bottin Mondain! :) 

But I digress. 

Last Friday, an ultra-hot guard (therefore) abruptly brought me, in my cell, a delightful letter from my dear old friend Fix. 

To give you a sense of Fix — a fundamental Zuger* and Thelemite after my own heart — I think the simplest thing is to republish here, as an interlude, the very first article (you’re too young to remember this…) where I mentioned this dear comrade — It’ll give you an idea — It dates back to 2009 e.v.: 

Dazed and Confused in Neuilly sur Seine 

Chronicle of My Sunday 

To Mildred R.  

Among other very personal characteristics, I happen to have as an old schoolmate the clumsiest person in Paris. 

Louis-Marie S., an otherwise perfectly well-bred young man, not only has the laugh of a hysterical parakeet: he seems to be at odds with the most ordinary objects — I mean, a pair of sugar tongs becomes, in his hands, a weapon of mass destruction; every staircase is a trial for him, and usually, the occasion for serious trauma — Furthermore, he has a very particular way of pronouncing the “oi” sound: in his mouth, “quoi,” “toi,” and “joie” sound like “queuâh,” “teuâh,” and “jeuâh,” which makes his conversation extraordinarily tiresome. 

It was thus with mixed feelings that I agreed, last night at eleven, to go with my buddy Fix to spend the night at his place, in preparation for this afternoon’s brunch. “You’ll see, Louis-Marie is going to ruin our weekend out of friendship…” 

François-Xavier, known as Fix, is one of my best mates, ever since the night when, drunk on champagne, I tried to climb the parental villa of a young lady in Royan, and the police caught us while he was giving me a boost. 

I can still see the furious look on the father of my sweetheart, who had forbidden me from approaching his daughter, and hear Fix’s screams as he struggled in the arms of a massive policeman: “Let me go!!! I’ll have you all sacked!!! My father is a consul!!!!” — Later, he admitted that being thrown into a sobering-up cell like a sack of nails by people he was used to seeing stand at attention before his father was a painful reevaluation of reality for him — I know it still bothers him — But anyway, for the night at Louis-Marie’s in Neuilly, he’s game. 

That night, I dream: a radiant young girl, all freshness and graceful charms, skips down a street in my 16th arrondissement; little by little, lecherous satyrs begin to follow her; frightened, she starts running, now pursued by a horde of these satyrs, and she takes refuge in a tree. Unfortunately for her, the tree is full of satyrs. 

I’d love to know what happens next, but Louis-Marie bursts into my room at seven, trips over my Churches, nearly emasculates himself on the corner of a dresser, drags me out of bed to force me to go golfing with him, and does roughly the same to Fix in the next room. 

When I meet Fix, as dazed and confused as I am, in the hallway, I mutter to him: “Wait till you see breakfast, and the coffee spilled on us…” — Wrong! Louis-Marie has already knocked over the coffee pot when we reach the dining room — I grab three croissants before he does something to them — but it’s impossible to enjoy them: Louis-Marie’s obsession this morning is talking about his wooden models — in beuâh — a subject his pronunciation makes unbearable — Fix and I try to stifle our laughter with fake coughing fits, taking care not to meet each other’s eyes — alas! Louis-Marie wraps up his tirade by telling us about a famous model-maker he knows in Bleuâh (Blois), and we lose it — thank the gods, his young wife arrives at that precise moment and distracts our host: he gets up to kiss her, trips over something, maybe his own feet, sprawls on the rug, gets up nearly poking Fix’s eye out with an elbow, lets out his insane laugh, and says he hurt himself really bad. 

At the golf course this morning: wind — Furious wind, not only sending balls off course by about 180° but probably tearing older golfers from their shoes — yet, I have the luck and pull off an albatross!!! The matter seems settled, until Louis-Marie’s cousin joins us, whose demeanor, determined chin, and huntress gaze — Amazonian, warrior-virgin — sporty, dignified, energetic, very serious, very kind, very sincere, but impervious to all humor — in short, exactly matching my ideal erotic archetype, throws me completely off: from that moment, I only hit divots and become the laughingstock of the course. 

Aperitif: Fix tells me to go easy on the Bloody Marys, reminding me of the time when, completely plastered, I called a genuine princess (by marriage, actually the daughter of an Italian industrialist) “Josiane” all through dinner because I found her horribly vulgar — unnecessary precaution: the waiter who mixed my cocktail seems to have swapped the proportions of tomato juice and Tabasco — I run to stuff myself with bread crumbs while letting out a long primal scream. 

As I chew, a pretty woman approaches me, saying, “I have something to ask you…” — a bit tipsy, I reply, “Anything you want, my heart’s an open book…” — a friend passes by at that moment and laughs, saying, “Be careful, with him, the heart drops fast…” 

Lunch: sweltering heat. I have Louis-Marie’s Amazonian cousin to my right, who talks about her volunteering with the mountain infantry (!!!) — I didn’t know that unit accepted women, and, as you can imagine, this conversation drives me wild — I hope to get her tipsy to take advantage of her inebriation, but when I try to pour her wine, she declares she never touches alcohol. Of course. 

Meanwhile, I make desperate efforts not to respond to my vis-à-vis, a ridiculous Polish woman (or perhaps a praying mantis in a suit), who overcompensates with such snobbery that she calls nearly everything “plebeian”: at the 6,587th time, I crack, stare at her nose pointedly, and say with a smile, “Not everyone can be plebeian…” which earns me a basilisk glare. 

Since we have a member of the Nègre family (of the famous Universal Music France president) and a charming young lady named Fromageot at the table, the conversation turns to difficult surnames. I hope this will annoy my vis-à-vis, who missed the start of the topic, but no: she claps her hands and exclaims, “Well, I once knew someone with a name so bad it was suicidal: Fromageot!” 

A legion of angels hovers over the table. 

Never has the phrase “moment of solitude” been better illustrated than by the look on that fool’s face when she realizes her gaffe. 

After lunch, Fix tells me about his misadventure: dripping with sweat, he tried to wipe his brow with his pocket square — But, due to his clumsiness, the square fell right onto his left neighbor’s crotch — Fix was trying to figure out how to extricate himself when, to his horror, he saw his neighbor hurriedly stuff the pocket square into his open fly: the guest had forgotten to zip up and mistook Fix’s square for a shirt tail :) 

Then, Louis-Marie invites everyone for a walk in the beuâh of the park, but I’ve had enough after the morning’s course. I stay behind to raid the bar. Louis’ two young sisters, fourteen and seventeen, beautiful as the day, offer to play billiards with me. I admit I don’t know how to play. They offer to teach me. We play a few games, and, frankly, I don’t feel bad between these two ravishing creatures — until, classic gag, the lady of the house walks in just as the younger sister says to me, “You’re holding your cue wrong. It needs to stay straight.” — The anecdote, endlessly repeated, commented on, and distorted, amuses everyone until evening… 

7:20 p.m.: Back home, slightly dazed. I settle in front of my PC. I’m not crazy about Sundays, actually. 

— Sir Shumule, July 5, 2009 e.v.

Those were the good times!… 

So! The indomitable, valiant, imperishable Fix has just sent me a letter from Switzerland, the essential content of which I now share with you: 

[…]The Egyptians, our masters in all things, had a marvelous way of exalting the quality of words. Tahuti, the Wisest of the Wise, said: “He who speaks well is beautiful and good.” That’s why I quote you systematically. Sorry if I’ve dulled their sharpness, but I’ve found nothing more impeccable than your phrases. […] 

When asked who the goddess Nuit is, I reply: “Sir Shumule, the Hierophant of our Sect, sees her somewhat as the Black woman in the ad for Jean-Paul Gaultier’s Divine perfume… He says, in particular: ‘all my actions are for our august lady, the beauteous goddess Nuit—and my personal religion boils down to this: once I understood that life is a courtly love affair between me and a Cleopatra raised to the power of a thousand, everything became clear—I feel far more akin to a Beyoncé, Britney Spears, or Selena Gomez fan in their devotion to their “queen” than to 99.9999% of the global occult community—When Misfortune strikes me, it’s because Nuit is in Gal Gadot-as-the-Evil-Queen mode, the Hunter has upset her, and I’m the one taking the fall for it—When Happiness comes my way, it’s because she’s in Nefertiti mode, pleased with my service, and has ordered me to be showered with gold—In both cases, it’s super sexy!’ 

When asked who the god Hadit is, I reply: ‘Sir Shumule, the Hierophant of our Sect, says: if we base ourselves solely on the Discourse of this god, recorded in the Second Chapter of the Book—outside of any doctrinal or ideological framework—then the nāḥāš Hadit, our Master, is a perverse seducer who loves athletic women, ostentatious luxury, and sadistic violence.’ 

When asked who the god Ra-Hoor-Khuit is, I reply: ‘Sir Shumule, the Hierophant of our Sect, calls RHK “a paranoid and vengeful god” and describes him as “a totalitarian egomaniac, ambitious, bloodthirsty, and inhuman.”’ 

[On that note], I don’t understand Seth. Why does RHK have as his token gay friend a petty, eunuch Cancer native with the head of an aardvark resembling a bull terrier? 

Why does he tolerate him on the solar barque and not toss him overboard? I know we can’t systematically kill all Cancer natives, but couldn’t we hang one or two as an example?…

These are good questions. 

In fact, Seth, as a servant of Choronzon (Restriction be upon him) — the < Blind Creature of the Slime > (Liber Tzaddi, 37), the < fulminant figure of Evil, the Horror of emptiness, with his ghastly eyes like poisonous well > (Liber Cordis 4, 34), — as, I say, a servant of Choronzon (Restriction be upon him) infiltrated into the divine community, Seth constitutes, so to speak, the “Shadow,” in the Jungian sense, of Horus (RHK) — which makes him painfully indispensable to the Lord of the gods. 

I addressed this Mystery in 2019 e.v. thus: 

Me and Choronzon Blues 

You are a seductive mystery promised to a sublime destiny who, like each of us, has a dark side. 

A part of your psyche growls, drools, and bares its teeth: it is unconscious — it is irrational — it feeds exclusively on ill will, perverse passions, and instinctive fears. 

It’s the piece of the world’s sickness that happens to have fallen onto your plate. 

Choronzon is the name given to this sludge of repressed desires, ego wounds, and naive self-delusions, which you deliberately ignore because it is unflattering and differs, in painful proportions, from what you’d like to believe you are. 

Carl Gustav Jung calls it “the Shadow”; Christians call it the Devil; Jews call it the Yetzer Hara; Hindus call it Apasmārapuruṣa; Buddhists call it Māra; the Ancient Egyptians called it Seth: you can call it your evil twin, your Mephisto, your inner Cancer native. 

Thus, Choronzon is also what the Alchemists transform into gold: not something intrinsically “evil,” but a subordinate that — like all stalkers, all insufferable daddy-issue cases, and all sacked lackeys — becomes, because it is ignored, hysterical in overcompensation: thus, man compulsively, caricaturally turns low-grade to stop suffering. 

If you don’t trample your Iznogoud, your Iznogoud will bite your calf. It will systematically sabotage your efforts unless you strive to aggressively identify and alchemically transmute it: < Refuse none but thou shalt know & destroy the traitors >(AL 3, 42): isn’t it well-known that complaining about others’ failings is to betray your own shortcomings?... 

If you disown an aspect of your character, it will suddenly materialize, at the edge of the woods, in more or less human form, when you least expect it… 

Like Sauron’s Ring, it wants to be found: hence the Freudian slips, the pseudo-accidents, the foolish inhibitions — the dangerously unhinged kinks,  

Me and Choronzon were walking side by side, I’m gonna beat my woman until I get satisfied. 

… the “terrible adventures”, Nietzsche tells us, make us suspect that the one to whom they happen is himself someone terrible. 

See! The dwarf who refuses to admit he’s a dwarf will be thrown (or rather, launched, since it’s a dwarf) onto a basketball court in front of millions of viewers: whoever denies what they dislike about themselves will have their nose rubbed in it. 

So be an Alchemist rather than a YouTuber! Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem: “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life, and you will call it fate,” says Carl Jung again — or, in my tireless formula: what you flee is your salvation.  

— Sir Shumule, August 27, 2019 e.v.

All this to say: keep an eye on my morale, send me wildly flattering letters too! And, of course, loads of money — enough, at least, to stock up on cases of Dom Pérignon and Panamanian prostitutes: this prison, in the evenings, is terribly dull! 

Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas. 

Love is the law, love under will. 

— ☉︎ in 4° ♊︎ : ☽︎ in 18° ♉︎ : ☉︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

* We usually nickname our Sect “Zuger”, to distinguish it from the rest of the global Thelemite community, because our first attempt at an Abbey of Thelema was located in Zug (Switzerland).

Retro Rascals : Leaping Laughter in a pre-PC Paradise

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

I have just received an imperious missive from Soror Neferusobek, who asserts—in essence—that the Woke ideology, political correctness, and the prevailing neo-puritanism now render ALL my writings recounting the joyful escapades of my dear youth liable to prosecution. 

By the Holy Stèle! I am appalled! 

I mean to say: in these texts, one finds nothing but the most juvenile antics… 

Consider: I am of Generation X, i.e., born during the Era of the Glimpsed Paradise (1966–1976): Make Love Not War was the first vibe in which I was immersed in this world. 

It is true that, in matters of Love and War, eroticism and martial arts have crossed paths in opposite directions since the neoconservative revolution… 

When I was thirteen, the only allure of school was that, on the way there, one could detour to the newsstand to buy Playboy or Penthouse and a pack of Rothmans Blues. 

And this posed no issue beyond the tobacconist’s wry smile. 

On the other hand, when it came to sports involving face-to-face physical confrontation (though, of course, reading Playboy at thirteen and facing the tobacconist’s wry smile are highly athletic face-to-face physical confrontations), combat sports, I say, were strictly limited. 

Even full-contact was banned. 

Thai boxing had a reputation for unbearable ultraviolence but was seen as a typical specialty, like the Reclining Buddha Temple, sticky mango rice, and gay pedophilia. 

The maximum allowed was French boxing. 

Conversely, nowadays, even the “coolest” female comedians let out shrieks of outraged piety and fire off scandalized tweets if their children happen to glimpse, at a newsstand, the cover of Hot Video where a pornstar shows no more than any woman at the beach—while, in terms of violent sports, MMA has just been fully legalized in France. 

Mind you! I am a huge fan of women’s MMA, a groupie of Gina Carano, revering her facial asymmetry and Picasso-signed nose—but it is undeniable that the average MMA fighter, at the canonical age of thirty-eight, can no longer spell their own name, remember where they live, or find a single centimeter of their body free from chronic pain. 

That said, the same is true of the pornstar… 

In fact, Soror Neferusobek is specifically referring to a text of mine—modestly titled “School Days”—published long ago on the occasion of the 2009 school reopening, narrating, with an admirable pen, the essence of my own schooling. 

The Sister declares the thing “atrocious and very likely illegal in May 2025,” and I would like to know if she speaks true. 

Thus, I provide below a faithful, full English translation of that old post—please tell me what you make of it. 

School Days 

To Saint Carolus Magnus, to Blaise Pascal and to Janson de Sailly.

“Happy, thrice happy days of ardent youth!” — Captain Edward Sellon 

It was—how could one forget?—the start of the school year a few days ago… 

Happy young people who have just returned to the classroom and for whom school is still a daily reality! 

Enjoy it to stock up on memories! Life is long… 

Last week, I was frolicking around my dear old Blaise Pascal School and the venerable Janson. (I frolic often. I love to frolic. As soon as I have a bit of free time, I frolic. In fact, this habit got me discharged from military service.) 

At the sight of my middle school and high school filling with students, something like a wave of nostalgia swelled my thirty-seven-year-old heart… 

How far away it all seems! And what glum expressions our present-day students wear! 

It seems that the youth of 2009 view schooling either as a sort of pre-kolkhoz or as the waiting room for the intelligent world… and they may not be entirely wrong… 

In my day, as some ancient provincials still say, things were very different… 

You must understand that, emerging from a primary education dispensed by a parade of greenish tutors, my entry into sixth grade felt like the relief one gets at the end of a dentist’s appointment. I had to wait for my first night at the Bains to experience a comparable rush of endorphins—and my schooling became perfectly enjoyable as soon as I banished its most tedious formalities, namely homework and rules… 

By the Holy Stèle! Though I’ve since attended Sciences Po, I’m still occasionally surprised that it’s Wednesday and I don’t have to go to detention… 

Middle school taught me, in any case, a few things: 

1. Work methodically. 

With the care of an illuminator, I would make my cafeteria tray revolting to annoy the staff—I always started by crafting the traditional bomb: (Fill your glass to the brim, cover it with your emptied tray, then flip the whole thing—if done correctly, the glass appears to have been flipped empty, and the absence of air will drag the tray along when the humble employee pulls on it—the tray will soon crash down, the water in the glass exploding and dousing the unfortunate worker in a most jubilant manner); then I’d smear the tray’s edges with Kiri cheese, so it couldn’t be grabbed without displeasure; and I’d finish by adorning it with a personal, somewhat trashy homage to Arcimboldo… 

2. Reject ease. 

One day, I decided to plant cafeteria knives in perfect quincunx patterns across the entire lawn, buried just enough to be undetectable at first glance but protruding enough to wreck a lawnmower blade… I used a friend’s rock’n’roll Doc Martens for the task, whose perfect compliance that day I cannot praise enough… We soon witnessed the delightful spectacle of our tiny groundskeeper mowing for five seconds… uttering a brief curse when his blade broke… painstakingly repairing his machine… mowing for five seconds… cursing again when his blade broke, etc. Not to mention the forty-eight hours of grueling work it took the poor man, once my scheme was uncovered, to uproot my knives… 

3. Aspire to excellence. 

In winter, I’d make a single snowball between noon and two, starting right after lunch and spending the entire break compacting it—by five minutes to two, it had naturally acquired the consistency of a standard pétanque ball: I’d then ask my classmates to seize the class’s official punching bag, whom they held at the back of the courtyard, while I executed a point-blank strike on his person—such was the custom—Alas, fate decreed that one day I’d slip, and my masterpiece, launched with extreme violence, flew fast and high, shattering the windows of Mr. P., our censor… The next moment, we were contemplating the flushed face of the worthy magistrate, slowly emerging like a distant tomato through his broken window, scanning the courtyard for his profaner… A marvelous scene, pictorially speaking… 

4. Stay active. 

We had a physics teacher officially affiliated with the Communist Party—in my young mind, a communist was a circus freak, like Siamese twins or bearded ladies (indeed, all communists today admit to belonging to one or the other category)—This one did nothing to reverse the trend: Mr. B was short, hideous, dirty, and began every sentence with “basically.” One day, arriving late to his class (and I don’t recall ever arriving on time), I pointed at him from the doorway, saying in a teacherly tone to my classmates: “Here, the last communist… the ultimate fossil, the survivor of a fetid race soon as extinct as smallpox…” Enraged, he lunged at me, like Woody Allen trying to thrash Dolph Lundgren… I fled, running, and led him, puffing furiously behind me, toward a bed of small firs, through which I made him slalom, trace curves, figures, and loops, to the immense glee of all my classmates gathered at the windows—until our stern censor, who had watched the scene from his office, intervened, asking Mr. B (sweating profusely) to stop making a spectacle of himself, and me (in tears from laughter) to stop laughing… 

5. Equip yourself properly. 

I once showed up to a massive geography test equipped with a cassette on which I’d recorded my entire course. I placed it in a tape recorder hidden in my locker, connected to an earpiece I slipped under my shirt and through my sleeve to my left ear—in the so-called Dying Buddha position (head nonchalantly resting on my hand), I planned to write under dictation. Alas! I’d poorly inserted the plug, and in the sepulchral silence of the class working on the test, my voice suddenly blared: “Chapter I, the Relief…” 

6. Prioritize the essential. 

But, of course, all these pranks are the sidelines, the diversions of a schoolboy’s life, whose essential activity remains, after all, masturbation—Such is human folly that all my antics went almost unnoticed among my peers compared to what truly earned me popularity: the equine dimensions of my virile attributes and my propensity to display them incessantly to satisfy their insatiable lust—Personally, I don’t recall any consistent activity from entering middle school to the BEPC other than onanism—but it wasn’t without trials—One day, during a French class, so engrossed was I in trying to quell my raging ardors behind my desk that I forgot the existence of our teacher (a petrifying brunette with a bun, glasses, and a pointed nose), I suddenly saw her standing before me, like the Commendatore’s statue—she shot me a withering glare, saying in a dry tone (and these words made her the school’s superstar): « Go on… Put it away… »—Another time, during English class, I’d revealed my turgid nature, at a terrifying stage of priapism, hoping to show it off to the girl in front of me—the fire alarm went off just as I was about to tap her shoulder—It was only a drill, but I was young, panic seized me, and, convinced the flames were real, I tried to bolt for the exit—Unfortunately, I’d made the classic mistake of pulling my virility straight through the zipper without unbuttoning the top—so, standing, hopping, shouting: “The fire alarm, damn it! It’s the fire alarm! We’re all going to die!” I couldn’t tuck it back into my pants—The English teacher, impeccably zen, watched me imitate a marsupilami with my frantic leaps and the disproportionate, persistently turgid caudal appendage, and it was as an ithyphallic satyr dancing the tarantella and swearing that I found myself in the courtyard…  

Then came high school. 

I tried a bit of boarding school. 

Not unpleasant, except that the corridor to the girls’ dorms passed by the headmaster’s and deputy’s staff quarters.

It took countless hours of study to map out every creaking floorboard in what we called the Death Corridor—but I eventually obtained the exact plan for the ideal crossing, each “mine” marked with a red cross.

We only needed to proceed slowly, following my arrows lit by our watches—I still remember the line I delivered upon first crossing the forbidden door, addressing a cute, slightly stunned second-year girl: “Who’s stronger? A frail child who doesn’t eat enough, or a six-foot-five Dracula lookalike with cocaine in his system?”

By year’s end, we’d gained enough skill to reach the delights of the gynaeceum in under twenty minutes, and our nocturnal escapades went not only suspected by the authorities… 

Back in Paris to prepare for my bac, I developed a violent aversion to one of my classmates, a shriveled, whiny, bespectacled boy we nicknamed, for reasons I no longer recall, El Gringo.

It’s not an exaggeration to title my final year The Passion of El Gringo… 

I began with the usual bullying and took particular care with the chapter “scorching humiliations in front of girls at the pool”… 

Then, truly elaborate persecutions began to sprout in my mind… 

It was necessary… 

The sight of El Gringo, who physically resembled a testicle or a kidney and pretended to mimic a rap attitude, was unbearable to me… 

I was becoming cruel… 

Truly cruel… 

I could’ve made a dehydrated Beninese child cry… 

But El Gringo avoided me, and I was reduced to expedients… 

One day, when he’d thought it wise to come to school in sweatpants, I caught him just in time at the top of a staircase and yanked down his pants as he stepped onto the landing—in my haste, I took his underwear with them, and it was fully exposed that El Gringo appeared before the Spanish teacher and a monitor, who were chatting in front of the classrooms and observed, without much fuss, the whitish, vermicular appendage he took a second too long (the time to realize what had happened) to conceal… 

The nickname Oyster Dick was coined alongside Gringo, but curiously, we continued to use the latter almost exclusively… 

Note that a wrestling dive I performed on my unfortunate classmate during PE, as he attempted a delicate gymnastics pose, which left him breathless for nearly two minutes and turned him blue, also earned him the name Smurf, without, once again, displacing El Gringo… 

I finally managed to send him to the hospital by firing, with a giant blowpipe made of five connected pens, a pen ball into his right ear. 

“This,” I thought, “is the swan song—what will I do when Gringo returns? How to top this?” 

Gringo returned. 

Still his punchable face and screechy voice, but my heart wasn’t in it anymore. 

Until my dear Corinne H. (who, if she reads this, should know that, though now a proper officer’s wife and mother, she was in high school the most irrepressibly arousing girl I’ve ever known) suggested I check out the vehicle El Gringo used… 

What was my astonishment to discover our friend rode to school on an unforgivable orange moped! 

I immediately sanctioned the offense by stealing the machine and placing it, running, in the girls’ bathroom… 

It was a great joy to see Gringo complain that someone had “nicked” his “ride” to all the students, who didn’t care, too busy wondering what that awful noise and black smoke coming from the girls’ bathroom was… 

El Gringo got a lock… a vain precaution… I quickly confiscated his keys and organized a Fort Boyard-style treasure hunt to let him retrieve them… 

Fifteen coded messages, scattered across the school, each carrying a riddle to find the next… El Gringo gave up at the seventh… Continuing would’ve been pointless anyway: the code on the fifteenth and final message had no particular meaning… 

He had to buy bolt cutters, and I didn’t fail to call the police to report a suspicious-looking guy trying to steal an orange moped in front of our school by cutting its lock with bolt cutters… The police, alas, didn’t intervene before Gringo fled—but no matter! This isn’t the place to denounce our executive’s ineptitude! 

My masterpiece was, with the help of my dear friend Taz, now a brilliant CEO and still an excellent partier, getting construction workers on a nearby site to hoist Gringo’s moped onto the school roof with a crane… 

We had to generously tip the entire crew, from the foreman to the recent apprentice, but we’d voted a no-limit budget for the operation and certainly didn’t regret it!!! 

We’d only planned to have the Gringomobile throne atop the building… Our accomplices, diligent workers, exceeded our wildest hopes and lifted it so high and so far forward that only a vague orange dot was visible against the rooftops… 

When, at five o’clock, Gringo came whining in my ear: “Come on, guys, where’d you put my ride?…” I replied with composure: “I don’t know, Gringo… Last I saw it, it was on the roof…” 

It was very complicated, very long, and very painful for our victim to retrieve his property… But I don’t recall ever laughing so hard… 

Verily, and Amen! Happy are the schoolboys if they knew their happiness! I got my bac with highest honors and the jury’s congratulations—I went to Sciences Po—and I sometimes regret not having failed every class since CM2, as it would mean I’d still be entering my final year this year… which is all the stupider since I never went to CM2… 

You only laugh freely in high school or at the sight of an old lady slipping on ice and sprawling in the street with all her packages… in both cases, enjoy it while it lasts!...

— Sir Shumule, September 6, 2009 e.v. 

You’ll say: You must feel a bit outdated, Sir, reminiscing—after a life as a complete sybarite, a red-heeled dandy, and an orgiastic guru—on such carefree adolescent memories… 

Don’t be mistaken—aging doesn’t worry me much—I’ve got time to see it coming—They taught us at school, during “prevention campaigns,” that the brain stops developing the moment you take cocaine: I’m thus currently about fifteen years old. 

Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD. 

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will. 

— ☉︎ in 1° ♊︎ : ☽︎ in 19° ♓︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Cosmic Romps and Papal Plots

I once dreamed I was making love to an alien creature with the power to transform into anyone its sexual partner was thinking of. During our romp, I turned it successively into Michelle Rodriguez, Selena Gomez, Jennifer Lopez, then found there were too many rhymes in "ez" and changed it to Emily Ratajkowski.

In doubt, trust the Variegated Elixir hidden within the golden obelisk erected at the heart of the fortress buried beneath the crystal mountain.

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Soror K. declared that the Catholics should have elected me Pope instead of Leo XIV — I replied that the fact that the judges, during my recent trials, described me as a “blend of Hannibal Lecter, Weinstein, and Rasputin” probably worked against my candidacy…

As a result, K. demands that I seize the opportunity of this election to deepen my reflections on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Vau — that is, the Vth Tarot Trump, called “The Hierophant.”

I don’t see the connection!…

Not that I positively despise Vatican matters, mind you: like any good Thelemite, I cherish the memory of Saint Roderic Borgia, Pope Alexander VI (may his merits protect us), about whom I once wrote:

I have boundless admiration for Rodrigo Borgia, a political genius, hero of debauchery, and patron of the arts who, hating Christianity, devised an original way to abolish it: by becoming Pope :)

He succeeded, and the eleven years of his pontificate were a luminous return to normalcy amidst the Christian night, a sensual and colorful interlude from which the Renaissance emerged — Alexander VI lived only for beauty, orgies, and the love of his children (two of whom, Cesare and Lucrezia, are the highest definitions of the human being the earth has ever borne).

He was a magnificent patron, and the world owes him, moreover, two supreme blessings: having freed the cabalist Pico della Mirandola, one of the most brilliant scholars humanism ever produced, from the dungeons of the Inquisition — and having had the agitator Savonarola, one of the most noxious vermin Christianity ever spawned, hanged…

Thanks to my ancestors, avid collectors, I sleep in a bed that belonged to the Borgias of the 14th century — but, of course, it’s when I’m not sleeping in it that I like to imagine that Alexander himself may have honored his mistresses there as well…

That said, I wholeheartedly recommend visiting the Borgia Tower in the Vatican: since Alexander believed only in gods worthy of the name, it is entirely adorned with frescoes depicting the Mysteries of Ancient Egypt — right in the heart of the Vatican! :)

What a sublime symbol of the work of the anti-Christian Pope: a tower raised to the glory of Horus and the Sages of Heliopolis, at the heart of this City stolen from France by a regicidal dwarf to pay his accomplices, and which became the emblem of their non-religion!

Moreover, since, after the pontiff’s death, the repulsive Julius II, out of envious hatred for his glorious predecessor, had this tower sealed — only reopened in the early 20th century by order of Leo XIII — the ambiance, the “charge,” the entire atmosphere of the era remain intact: one is truly teleported to the heart of the Quattrocento, in the living vibration of the Renaissance — and one genuinely expects, at the turn of the salons, to see Lucrezia, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, and Alexander Pontifex Maximus himself appear… Eternal memory!!!

But back to our subject :

The essence of the Hierophant, — says our august queen, the beauteous goddess Nuit, — is to assume the rank of prince-priest (AL 1, 15), that is, to wield both temporal AND spiritual authority.

I am a very poor temporal authority — I am incapable of caring about politics: I don’t speak dachshundish.

Moreover, I maintain that the legal regime of France ended with the deposition of Childeric III (751 e.v.), which is a delightfully dandy position, but not exactly progressive.

Yes, let’s admit it, I am clearly a royalist — Everyone thinks it’s because the late Count of Paris, of his own accord, followed me on Twitter at a time when following me on Twitter was highly compromising, but my love for monarchy actually stems from the fifteen days I spent in Bangkok with two gymnast girls.

In the final analysis, my political credo can be summed up in the following statement: I don’t care about the fate of Malians or Guatemalan elections. The genocide of the Tutsis in Rwanda leaves me completely indifferent. The famine in Malawi, the repression in Kyrgyzstan, all that—I couldn’t care less. The same goes for the Burmese military junta, Dzungar political prisoners, and the price of barley in Poland. I no longer want to suffocate in the slimy coils of this GLOBAL GUILT. The only thing that interests me is what happens in the Thelemite community! No, I mean in the Thelemite community of MY obedience! No, I mean in my family! No, I mean in my house! No, I mean in my room! No, I mean in my bed! — WE DON’T WANT SUSTAINABLE, ECO-RESPONSIBLE PURCHASES! WE WANT MORE BEAUTIFUL THINGS!

On the spiritual plane, however, the Hierophantic task consists of teaching < lest there be folly > (AL 1, 36) — that is, to combat what the Lord of all gods calls < crapulous creeds > (AL 3, 54) — and nothing could be easier: the < gods of men > (AL 3, 49) are so dull!

Christianity: Christian morality is a passive gay man “forgiving” a macho gay man for sodomizing him a bit roughly the night before.

Islam: I don’t reproach Islam for being “violent,” the Book of the Law is far more so — I reproach Islam for its followers too often abusing the Arab habit of being ugly.

Hinduism: Gandhi is a third-world mercenary guru, even more of a third-world mercenary guru than Jesus and Nelson Mandela combined.

Buddhism = institutionalized fetal regression.

Confucianism: Confucius was Asian and an attention whore, so Confucius was a YouTube influencer.

Judaism : Sorry, but anything backed by Gal Gadot has my support—I’d raze Palestine for ONE smile from Gal Gadot.

Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

- ☉︎ in 29° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 22° ♒︎ : ☽︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

The Emperor’s Booty: A Thelemic Rant on Love, Latinos, and the Decline of the West

Atu IV, The Emperor, Thoth Tarot

Sir Shumule is so narcissistic that when he makes love to the most beautiful supermodel in the world, he closes his eyes and imagines he’s jerking off. — Soror Jezebel 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

It is the 18th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Tzaddi, that is, the IVth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Aries and called “The Emperor.” 

Soror K. claims she struggles to take this card seriously, on the grounds that the Emperor reminds her “of the King in Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, or a registered Republican.” 

The bad faith of this young woman is obvious… 

Still, she interprets the Mystery of Tzaddi in an exclusively political light, which reminds me of a recent question posed by some young Zemmour supporters: 

“Sir, do you believe zero immigration is achievable in France, given how Trump failed even to attempt it in the United States?” 

I replied: one of the advantages we have over America is that the bulk of our troublesome migrants come from the ugliest dregs of Africa. 

The migratory submersion of the U.S. population, on the other hand, is an exclusively Hispanic phenomenon — And Becky G is the definitive argument in favor of open borders — Every normally constituted man secretly admits that Becky’s booty alone justifies the ghettoization, ruin, and destruction of several cities — And Becky knows it. 

This, by the way, is more or less what I told a Texan friend in November 2020 e.v. (very nouveau riche, as far-right as it gets, puts ice cubes in Château Pétrus — in short: Texan), supporting my argument with Eva Angelina, knowing this friend is extremely Brazzers-savvy: 

— Eva Angelina is living proof that you need to import more Mexicans! 

Indeed, who is the enemy? — China. 

What is the strength of the Chinese? — Work Ethic. And they can’t even pronounce “Work Ethic.” 

The Chinese are fine working eighteen hours straight under the blazing sun, paid in peanuts — and I’m not even sure they have peanuts in China, but anyway, paid in whatever Chinese people snack on at happy hour. 

They’re only happy when there’s a thousand of them in a basement, toiling like 19th-century convicts, and if they all have the same haircut, it’s not a problem — it’s a bonus. 

By the Holy Stèle! Your Whites are all boomer material and work for the weekend! 

Who’s left to stand up to Xi Jinping? — Latinos, who are conservative to the point of Pétainism and proved it by voting 100% for Trump. 

Latinos only need a holy picture of the Virgin Mary, a foreman who took Spanish-tech as an elective in 8th grade, and for their daughter not to bring home a Black guy. 

They’re as industrious and devoid of union courage as the Chinese, but their women have divine curves. (Hispanic women compulsively drive me up the wall — much to my decorator’s dismay — but I don’t recommend Chinese lovers: two hours of effort to get in because it’s so tight, and because it’s so tight, you finish the moment you’re in! Here too: Stakhanovism and a frustrating payoff! But Eva Angelina could say the same about her own line of work… QED.) 

Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD. 

Warm kisses from the Bahamas. 

Love is the law, love under will. 

— ☉︎ in 16° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 2° ♌︎ : ☉︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Sticky Bliss

Atu V, The Hierophant, Thoth Tarot

I find that Shumule's verbal flow increasingly evokes the violent and incoherent thoughts of a dying person, at the moment when synapses wildly unleash and memories frantically flood in chaotically, without regard for context, logic, or mental health. — Genderqueer en phase de déni.  

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 

It is the 17th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Vau, that is, the Vth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Taurus and called “The Hierophant.” 

So, I’ve titled this post Sticky Bliss for two reasons, which I ask the reader’s permission to lay out before them: 

1. There’s nothing in what follows that one could, in perfect confidence of conscience, describe as “sticky.” 

2. The notion—so important in Thelema—of Bliss, considered a state of supreme felicity, isn’t even touched upon here. 

Anyway: 

Soror Jezebel—who is more butch lesbian than Michelle Rodriguez’s jawline, and a fourth-wave feminist like an entire season of Buffy—claims that Atu V should outright “push cynicism to the point of calling itself ‘Triumphant Patriarchy.’” 

That’s wildly exaggerated. 

Besides, all this talk of patriarchy is absolutely ridiculous. 

Any pretty girl—even a moderately pretty one—has known since the 5th grade that she rules the world. 

My personal tragedy is that I’ve always been more drawn to roller derby girls than to career-plan BCBGs. (Have I ever told you about the night at the Hôtel de Crillon when, after the Ball, I leapt into bed with a stunning debutante, a diplomat’s daughter, in her Ungaro dress, and only managed to stay motivated by picturing Joan Jett changing a tire?) 

On another note, someone wrote to me saying I practice the hermeneutics of Thelema’s Holy Books like one might commentate a roller derby match, and I’m not sure if it’s hate mail. 

I have so many haters! 

I estimate that 50% of the internet users who read me do so out of fascinated animosity. 

It’s like with a heel wrestler or those classic Walt Disney films where the villain is cool—nowhere else will you find someone with my height, my nose, my alien skull, and my Chinese mandarin fingers! 

It’s the spice, the kink, the reason people drink Red Bull. 

You don’t drink Red Bull for the taurine or the taste of sugary soda mixed with Grey Goose vodka.

You drink it for the unpronounceable ingredient—unnameable, I should say, it’s so chemical—the excipient with a name like a K-pop group that would have been named after a barcode—the abominably synthetic stuff you don’t know why it’s there, only to later learn the industry also uses it to make hubcaps and pornstar breasts—I don’t know what it is, but I want some in my vaccine! 

Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD. 

Warm kisses from the Bahamas. 

Love is the law, love under will. 

— ☉︎ in 15° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 19° ♋︎ : ♄︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.