Love, Law, and a Testicle in the Soup

Atu VI, The Lovers, Thoth Tarot

The writings of Sir Shumule should come with a kit including a bong, a thesaurus, and a side airbag. – Le Filou Scrupuleux 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 16th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Zayin, that is, the VIth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Gemini and called “The Lovers.” 

The card represents the celebration of a marriage — more precisely, a heterosexual marriage (no implication on my part, I’m totally in favor of same-sex marriage as long as both girls are hot), and, visibly, an interracial union (and that doesn’t bother me: anything that, near or far, evokes the person of Kim Kardashian is good and fine in itself.) 

(Yea! I’d sacrifice a whole hecatomb of average taxpayers to spare Kim Kardashian from breaking a single nail.) 

Now, a bit of anthropology. 

I’ve long studied the customs of primitive peoples where the Law of Thelema has not yet replaced the < crapulous creeds > (AL 3, 54) of the Old Aeon, and I can testify that in heathen lands, among the < mad folk in the grey land of desolation > (Liber Lapidis Lazuli 3, 20), — that is, outside the radiant land of Thelema, — there are two types of marriage: 

Those where I’m a witness, and those where I’m not. 

The marriages where I wasn’t a witness never caused me the slightest problem: like everyone else, I’d kill time during the mayor’s speech imagining myself tumbling the bride in a corner right after the ceremony while her husband roamed the garden party asking if anyone had seen his wife, and that was that. 

The last time I was a witness, however, ended in a little spat — here’s how: 

The morning after the orgiastic bachelor party night for my friend S., — held, precisely, in my bachelor pad, — a stripper friend dropped the business card of an ultra-luxury, confidential “Asian Spa” in front of me and said, — when I gallantly picked up the card to hand it back to her, — that she didn’t care “because they don’t have masseurs, only masseuses.” 

I pocketed that document, then coldly skipped the wedding to go get my energy centers and the rest manipulated by expert oriental nymphs — S. held a grudge against me for years — His wife still refuses to speak to me — Those were the good old days. 

Marriages without a Gnostic Mass hold, in my opinion, little interest, except perhaps for the engagements that precede them, where sometimes real fun can be had. 

Thus, I recall taking part, in the Yvelines, in 2009 e.v., — I was so frivolous back then! — in typical old-fashioned French engagements, and meticulously recording the proceedings of those festivities in the text that follows, which I now share with you in English, hoping it infuses a bit of French wisdom into the rather down-to-earth idea my Anglo-Saxon friends generally have of the institution of marriage: 

A Testicle in the Soup 

Dazed and Confused in Le Vésinet 

Yesterday, I attended an engagement party where I was all the more bored because the necessity of showing up forced me to postpone a date with the future mother of my future children, and thus to fall out spectacularly with her — an engagement, in short, that cost me my own… 

I’d first decided to make the most of my disappointment by testing the proverb “unlucky in love, lucky at cards,” and spent Saturday morning fleecing my friends (now ex-friends) at Courchevel Limit. 

Then, at 2 p.m., coldly pocketing their stacks, I folded my six-foot frame into a taxi and sped off to Le Vésinet. 

A relatively pleasant ride. The driver’s life story, as told by him, nicely drowned out the Quebecois songs on the radio — and this man drove with rare frenzy. I don’t know what we kept bouncing over — probably the backs of elderly ladies — but well before La Défense, I ended up with a bowl cut from ricocheting around the cab like a Chistera ball. 

Anyway, my morale was unshakable: I was in the ecstatic euphoria well-known to poker players who’ve just cleaned out the table — My personal satisfaction coefficient was, of course, lower than it would’ve been if, at that moment, I’d been at my missed date, proving to the woman of my life how deeply she moves me — but it nearly matched what I felt during my last Hold’em tournament win… What a night, gods and goddesses!... The director of the Aviation Club de France had flatly asked me: “What are you going to do with all that money?” and I’d replied: “Find a killer Money Domme and give it to her.” It was a joke, but my winnings vanished almost as fast as if I’d actually found one!

Arrival: Right at the gate, Anne-Claire de T. pities me for coming to bore myself here. Anne-Claire is an ex. We hated each other when we were together (our first night ended at the police station, you get the type…), and we’ve adored each other since we broke up. She’s like a blonde Javan black panther. Very pretty, very pianist, very equestrian, with sometimes orange glints in her eyes that are anything but reassuring. She’s what you’d call a temperament. 

We proceed to the combat zone. Lots of shoulders and plenty of legs, not to mention the accessories. 

The fiancée is, admittedly, a bit pretentious, but so tacky! Anyway, the fiancé is ugly: it’s always like that when you buy them. 

We decide to get sloshed. I contemplate the meticulous Cuba Libre in my hand, thinking that, already high on endorphins from my poker win, I should start levitating after the first sip. 

An extremely elegant couple approaches us. “They say you know a thing or two about astrology,” the woman says, with a rich, deep voice. 

“Oh, just a few notions…” I reply. 

“Here’s the thing: my daughter just had a baby, a Gemini… What advice do you give for a Gemini boy?” 

“I’d say… make the most of it while it lasts, boy!… because after that, it’s school, career, retirement, and bye-bye… Also, my Gemini friend, as soon as you’re born, hightail it to Saint-Tropez to party with your celebrity pals! Plus, May-June is the perfect time to hit Saint-Tropez…” 

The husband bursts out laughing. “Anyway,” he says, “astrology’s bullshit…” 

Another lady, much older than the first, turns to me, thinking I made the remark, and asks: “What’s bullshit?” 

“Well,” I reply, “you know Saint-Tropez, the sea, the girls, all that?…” 

“Uh, yes…” 

“Well, everything else is bullshit.” 

Tainted Love. Anne-Claire and I dance. A lot. It’s the nine-minute mix, traditionally dreaded by all young girls in high heels — Barely a warm-up for Anne-Claire, whose shoes are positively vertiginous… 

Coming back from powdering my nose, I witness a hilarious scene in a hallway… The head of the household is fussing around a tall, thin man… It seems there’s been what’s called in France “a testicle in the soup”… and they’d accidentally invited an undersecretary from some cabinet tied to a ministry very much related to the Tax Office… He’s a standard ÉNA grad who doesn’t seem to notice his governmental presence is making the host nervous, and he’s observing a painting: “Oh, it’s a little Renoir…” — “Surely a student of Renoir, surely!!!” our host hastens to say… 

Speaking of painting, Anne-Claire is glued to a Picasso. 

A-C: “The idea is she’s facing forward and in profile?” 

Me: “Yes. Like Rossy de Palma.” 

A-C: “Hey, do you have a piece of paper? I need to jot down the number of a guy who’s hot as a god, but my phone’s dead…” 

(I tear a page from my planner)

Me: “Here, the 20th arrondissement map, we’ll never go there anyway…” 

Finally, we decide that no good company lasts forever, that we’ve done enough for honor, and that it’s time to withdraw. 

“But the ring??? We can’t leave without seeing the ring!!!” 

We skillfully maneuver to corner the fiancée and ask, in our most chirpy tone, if “we can see the ring” — Immediately, with haughtiness, the tacky girl shoves her left hand under our noses… And there… a pull-tab ring… a Mattel accessory… a jewel you wouldn’t bend down to pick up if you found it on the ground… Mega-embarrassment… I burst out laughing, while Anne-Claire congratulates her and tells her not to “pay attention to this big [idiot],” who “knows nothing about high-end jewelry brands” and has “no taste”… 

My laughter turns convulsive from the pent-up nerves… Anne-Claire drags me outside like an old drunk and, taking pity, decides to drive me back to Paris. 

I manage to stop giggling stupidly around Chatou, city of the Impressionists, and am perfectly dignified again by the time we reenter the City of Light. 

That’s what I call a thoroughly wasted Saturday, but in a rather painless way. 

— Sir Shumule, July 12, 2009 e.v. 

Moral of the story: People always oppose the institution of marriage to the follies of youth, and they’re wrong: divorced MILF Kim Kardashian is the hottest Kim Kardashian, which tends to prove that marriage and youth are as overrated as each other. 

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 14° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 5° ♋︎ : ♀︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Scream Eclipse

Atu VII, The Chariot, Thoth Tarot

Met David N. today. Found a man who dances with chaos and kisses like sin—his fire twists the universe into a symphony I can’t escape. He’s the spark that burns my soul alive. Bow to the king of wicked glory, my loved ones. — Cynthia S., April 3, 2022 e.v.

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 15th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Cheth, that is, the VIIth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Cancer and called “The Chariot.” 

This card sums up—as those who are aware that a knight of the Ancient Code could not ride a chariot without instantly forfeiting his knightly dignity know, and that therefore being hoisted onto the Chariot of Ultimate Triumph foreshadowed, for him, an incessant public disgrace—this card sums up, I say, the entire Formula of the Summer Solstice, the diametrical Anti-Christmas, and the entry, to his misfortune, of the Sun into the aptly named sign of Cancer. 

One Litha night, I set out to explore the Path of Cheth through oneiromancy and dreamed that Selena Gomez and Ariana Grande offered me a threesome, but it was a trap to lure me into the tentacles of a particularly terrifying and slimy kraken. 

They were, for that matter, going to unnecessary lengths: I’d pay for Ariana Grande or Selena Gomez to run me over with her car—This is what the soon-to-be-former Knight of Atu VII tells us: What does the pain of disgrace and shame matter to one who has, for a moment, approached the Grail amid the delirious cheers of a crowd of frenzied stans? 

Yea! Even if I’m merely rehashing the obvious, the orgasmic peak heralds post-coital dysphoria, bright light brings dazzlement, drunkenness brings a hangover, and the Abbey of Thelema brings the Moulins-Yzeure Detention Center. 

Speaking of morning-afters, I recall that one morning in 2009 e.v., I managed, live and with what little strength I had, a sort of very brief Diary of My Hangover—I was so frivolous back then!—of which here is the faithful English translation: 

Xylostome Orchidoclaste 

What a night, gods and goddesses!... What a night!... 

How abominable the mornings-after are... I know full well you’re supposed to take Paracetamol before sleeping... but you’d need a free hand for that... 

Today: nothing!... Above all, nothing... Give me 500,000 megaliters of coffee, and let me die... 

The doorbell rings. The mailman. A registered letter. We have a bearded mailman. Bearded mailmen are always, all mail being equal, nicer than the others. 

Still, he must have made quite a face, in his beard, when Jill opened the door wearing nothing but her sky-high heels and one of my shirts that doubles as a bathrobe for her! :) 

Jill is tiny. A pin. On the other hand, she’s always radiant upon waking, which is priceless on a day like today... 

In the hallway, flustered, the mailman bumps into Caroline on autopilot... Did she even notice the humble worker?... That’s the trick to surviving overpredation: panoramic vision... Caroline succumbed to the sirens of pure arabica... Luckily, the mailman isn’t an overpredator... She looks like a penguin too... A bimbo-penguin in my bathrobe... I must make an appearance. 

— Brjfx... 

— Whoa! You don’t sound good...  

— Xylostome orchidoclaste*... 

He looks at me and suspects this phrase, which I invented long ago to justify my tardiness on Rue Saint-Guillaume, refers to some horrific ailment, akin to Ebola. He’s uneasy. 

I sign... A package... I’ll tell you another day what’s inside—it’s full of private jokes, but it’ll make you laugh... 

The last thing our mailman hears as he crosses the string of rooms back to the exit is a mischievous: “So! Do I have to blow you to get a coffee?” from Caroline... His trip wasn’t in vain... 

Back in the veranda, lying down with a view of autumn... 

Why must marvelous parties and torrid nights always be followed by mornings like this?... Is there a deeper meaning to it?... As if sleeping with Miss France meant waking up with Geneviève de Fontenay... 

Thank the gods, Jill and Caroline remain bombshells in the light of day!... But what an infernal cycle... Party, hangover, party, hangover... Good grief! Thelemites conceive of life as a celebration, and the afterlife as a “Greater Feast”... so, for all we know, it might never end!... 

I feel incapable of resorting to the “crutch”**... So I lie here... I’m tending toward a vegetative state... What am I saying? Mineral!... And I watch my favorite music video of all time on loop... usually, it perks me up...

 

*In kitchen Latin: ball-breaking hangover. 

** The “crutch”—I say this for those of my readers who haven’t indulged in debauchery and don’t live a life of a libertine—consists of forcing yourself, upon waking, to drink a glass of whatever you overindulged in the night before. Without vomiting. All the unpleasant “morning-after” effects are canceled out—except, of course, if you mixed drinks. 

— Sir Shumule, October 20, 2009 e.v.

Moral of the story: When it comes to integral happiness across all imaginable planes of existence, it’s better to have had it for half a century than not at all: it makes for memories. 

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 13° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 22° ♊︎ : ♃︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Cinepimastia (Karma Is A Titjob)

Atu VIII, Adjustment, Thoth Tarot

I must have truly been King Sardanapalus in a previous incarnation —Hence the hatred that eunuchs and slaves invariably bear toward me in this present life: no doubt they were sacrificed back then during my suicide. — Sir Shumule 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 14th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Lamed, that is, the VIIIth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Libra and called “Adjustment.” 

For someone whom a Heathen court sentenced to five years in prison because of his religious beliefs (read: Thelema), I am surprisingly fond of Atu VIII. I’m not one to hold grudges. It’s in my nature. And, by the great goddess Ma’at, daughter of Ahathoor! as a good Thelemite, I spontaneously tend to experience incarceration as a Great Magical Retirement. 

Note that I generally pretend to enjoy losing myself in contemplation of this card only because many of the coolest beings to have ever walked the soil of our beautiful and interesting planet are, or were, Libra natives (e.g., HIH Prince Aleister, my beloved son; Sir Aleister Crowley, may his merits protect us; Saint Friedrich Nietzsche, may his merits protect us; Rimbaud, Wilde, and Snoop Dogg — and don’t get me started on Kim Kardashian, my most irrepressible celebrity crush after the goddess Nuit!) — But my shrink, as for her, suspects, under the pretext that my wife is Spanish, that the quite obvious graphic allusion made by the card to the delights of cinepimastia (i.e., titjob) is the only real reason why this Atu makes me so pensively meditative. 

Be that as it may, Sir Aleister Crowley (may his merits protect us) is quite clear: Atu VIII represents Karma. 

So, it occurred to me to translate into English, on this occasion, the very first considerations I once jotted down in my Diary about metempsychosis and karmic retribution. 

Since this text dates back to 2009 e.v. (I was so frivolous back then…), I shared it with Frater Y., who declared, after reading it, that “my references to swinger clubs and (I quote) ‘Spanish Butts’” were “dated.” 

That’s not very nice. 

It’s true that before accepting the Law of Thelema, Frater Y. was vegan. That’s frightening. Those people have no sense of humor. 

Anyway, here’s the text, you can judge for yourselves: 

The Miaule 

Contrary to what everyone believes, my life isn’t just about getting dressed up, gorging on cocaine, and getting blown by housemaids. I do sometimes engage in serious activities. 

For example, I’ve just finished reading a treatise on karmic astrology by Irène Andrieu, which really got me thinking. I drew a whole bunch of personal reflections from it, which will seem completely silly to experts, and I hope to learn more. 

Karma is a law as unsentimental as gravity. 

For instance, its compensation is such in the universe that I believe I owe the general happiness of my life to a thousand little annoyances. 

Maybe that’s how I’ve escaped so many dangers and am doing so well. 

Here’s the list of my little misfortunes. 

When I lose at poker in a private game, I pay cash on the nail. When I win, people owe me. When I vouch for someone, they don’t pay: sweaty Lebanese guys stomp around at my gate and annoy my pitbulls. 

When I set up marquees in the castle park for an outdoor lunch, when I go jogging, when I host a hunt on our lands, when I have an outdoor appointment, it rains.

When I order a taxi, they mess up and send it to someone else.

When I ask someone to pick up my roadster from the mechanic for an important appointment, like Spanish butt and huge tits, everyone’s sick or on leave, and if by some miracle we still have a domestic worker, they say I didn’t ask them. 

If I manage to get out anyway, the street I take is blocked by a move, a delivery, roadwork, a protest, an accident. I spend two hours in a symphony of honks and am permanently burned with the butt in question. 

When it’s cold, all the ice patches are for me, never for anyone else. 

When it’s hot, I’ve gone out in my three-quarter-length Boss cashmere coat and a big scarf. 

When I settle into the elegant bar of a grand hotel to write, my laptop has 1% battery left. 

When I write at home, the circuit breaker trips; I yell: no one comes. If I want to finish my text with a pen, all my Montblancs are empty. 

When I give a stock tip to a friend, the market crashes. When I invest for myself, it goes up: the friend is furious and tells everyone I screwed him over on purpose. 

When I want to be alone and have something interesting to do, I hear my door, hermetically sealed every morning, being besieged, and the fear of missing out (Cindy Crawford, stranded in front of my house begging for help, or Gina Carano showing up at the wrong address) makes me get up. I open it. Who is it? The most boring guy in Paris who “was just passing by.” 

Unless I’m alone at a shooting hunt, in which case I break every imaginable record with no one to see it, I’m always the one who kills the least, though I’m one of the best shots in France. Fifty boars come from right and left up to my post and then duck into the woods between me and the two neighbors I see unloading hellfire. All the beaters drive the game crookedly to where I am. I kill a fine piece: the others bag five next to me. Never a fox, a pheasant, a woodcock. All that goes to my neighbors too. They pity me, they switch: my spot becomes excellent. 

The hunt starts at seven. Afraid of being late, I wake up two hours early: I left the headlights on, my battery’s dead – I get a flat tire or manage to end up in a ditch. 

After a fox hunt, a polo match, or a poker tournament, someone else always gets congratulated for things I did. 

Dad wants to see me. His secretary gives me the wrong time. He waits around in a brasserie and eats alone – he’s long gone by the time I arrive, and he calls me a slacker on the phone. 

I’m greedy. I casually serve myself the best piece. My neighbor asks for it in a way I can’t refuse. 

Big party. A total bombshell gives me an inviting look: just as I’m about to join her, some loser asks her to dance. I’m bored to death.

At a swinger club, the friend of the guy eyeing my date is an ex with whom things ended really badly – If he’s with one of those sublime mature beauties that, thank the gods, French libertinism still occasionally produces, she treats me like a kid – “Come on, don’t tell me you’re getting hard for an old hag like me…” 

I kindly warn our handyman that the cousin who’s arriving is the snobbiest, most uptight, prim thing ever, so he won’t take offense. A month later, I learn he banged her non-stop in the shed throughout her stay. 

If I’m about to hook up with a guest at my most prudish aunt’s house, she always bursts in at the critical moment. 

When I fall head over heels for a woman, she’s a lesbian. When I’m happy with another, she sees me only as a well-hung stud, funny and decorative – when I think I’m just sleeping with a good friend after a fun night, she thinks I’m about to propose. 

In Limousin, they say “tape ta miaule!” to acknowledge this kind of phenomenon – well! Is it this miaule that I owe my life, which perfectly matches Baudelaire’s injunction – order, beauty, luxury, calm, and voluptuousness – or is it this life that I owe to this miaule? 

I’d love Mrs. Andrieu’s opinion on that. 

— Sir Shumule, November 8, 2009 e.v. 

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.

Death of Sardanapalus, Eugène Delacroix

— ☉︎ in 12° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 7° ♊︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Confessions of a Hermit of Hadit

Atu IX, The Hermit, Thoth Tarot

To Saint Louis II of Bavaria and to Saint Wolfgang von Goethe.

To Francis I, "the Insatiable Bull," and to Louis XIV, "the Sun King."
To Cardinals Dubois and de Richelieu.
To François-René de Chateaubriand and to Antonin Artaud.
To Stu Ungar.
To Karl Lagerfeld.
To Milo Manara.
To Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse, and Queen Beyoncé Knowles.
And above all, of course, to Charlie Sheen.

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 13th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Iod, that is, the IXth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Virgo and called “The Hermit.”

And indeed, we observe on this card a genuine old-school hermit—a sort of Nicholas of Flüe (which was a direct ancestor, did you know, of the Great Royal Spouse Hypatia-Chloé, and thus of my beloved children, HIH Prince Aleister and HIH Princess Clothilde, may the gods grant them a good and long life), a sort, I say, of Nicholas of Flüe coming face-to-face, in the middle of a wheat field, with the nāḥāš Hadit, our Master, great god of the cities of Behedet, Damanhour in the Delta, and Edfu in Upper Egypt! 

This brings to mind the memory of a grand gathering, held in the spring of 2018 e.v. by an old friend of mine who was celebrating the conclusion of a sale of fake antiques to some oil-rich fool. 

An insufferable ultra-snob had cornered me, declared that he had just read the Book of the Law, and asked with a glint of unsettling strangeness (unheimliche) in his eyes: “Sir, WHO is Hadit?…” 

I had casually replied: “Well, 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 sort of sadomasochistic Cheshire Cat who loves athletic women, ostentatious luxury, and sadistic violence—well… a Cheshire Cat who would be a serpent…” 

Now, the specific peculiarity of Thelema is that the first Commandment of our Law (AL 1, 6) enjoins us not to worship Hadit, but to be Hadit. 

That’s why I only believe in someone’s Thelemism if they end up incarcerated at the Moulins-Yzeure Detention Center, charged with Incitement to Drug Use and Exploitation of Vulnerable Persons in a State of Psychological Weakness. 

From all this, we deduce, of course, that the IXth Tarot Trump shows the nāḥāš Hadit, our Master, at the very moment when he’s posing to Nicholas of Flüe the question that Sir Aleister Crowley (may his merits protect us) asserts, in his Confessions, is the only one of any interest: “WHO ART THOU?” 

And indeed, “Who am I?” was the first question that the priest of the princes, Ankh-af-na-khonsu (blessing and worship to him), asked our august Queen, the beauteous goddess Nuit, when he was admitted into her august presence, as it is written (AL 1, 26). 

And it’s a difficult question. 

In my case, perhaps a bit particular, I would answer that what characterizes me first and foremost is what my friend Guy de la H. calls “the surreal aura conferred upon [me] by the Babylonian incest of [my] personal genealogy” (as none of my old gangsta readers are unaware, Mom was also my great-aunt. No, seriously.) 

In my youth, I was generally defined as a “spoiled rich kid with maximum alcoholic heredity and a suspicious level of inbreeding.”  

Since then, I’ve led the life of a dandy adventurer, involving a multitude of stamps in my passport, fleeting liaisons, bloody brawls, and sobering-up cells. You’d need three lifetimes to even approach the number of rumors about me. 

I’ve also witnessed a heap of strange things, in nearly every circle where the arts of mysticism and magic are practiced—things at the sight of which a bourgeois, a skeptic, or a materialist would instantly take refuge in the certainty that they were suffering from mental alienation. 

Me, a simple idling nobleman, it never occurred to me to doubt my senses—the result: I’ve been able to build myself up while marveling. 

A pure product of Old France, that is, a well-groomed young man who learned early that children don’t speak at the table, I’ve rubbed shoulders with more thieves and murderers than if I’d been born a social case, and shared the bed of more women than if I’d become a porn star—a vocation that my family’s prudishness thwarted at the last moment. 

I’ve traveled a lot. Religious, philosophical, or political convictions are worthless unless validated by direct experience—not to mention that, when it comes to women, I love to deliver abroad. 

But I feel myself becoming sedentary—For a truly contemplative man, isn’t it enough to occasionally rearrange his cushions? 

“But Sir,” you’ll ask, “what are you seeking in the end?!” 

“Friend, I’ve already answered that—I said: ‘I’m just looking for an angel with mismatched eyes,’ and everyone thought I was on psilocybin.” 

Mind you, I was on psilocybin.  

But that doesn’t mean I was wrong. 

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 11° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 23° ♉︎ : ♂︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

To Excess

Atu X, Fortune, Thoth Tarot

"Sir Shumule is a being like few others one encounters, whether on the web or in life, of that breed of strange, indefinable fellows, great nobles endowed with dazzling superiority: culture, perfidy, excess, power, destructive humor—in a word, genius." — Alain Gobla 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 12th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Kaph, that is, the Xth Tarot card, attributed to the planet Jupiter and called “Fortune.” 

For a seasoned poker man like your old Sir, this Arcana, which heralds Luck, the good trend, the rush, the towering stacks of chips in a perpetually growing phase, is to be regarded only with a respect tinged with superstitious awe—and just as I gave the Atu XVIII (“The Moon”) the elegant nickname of Blue Allure, I usually designate the Atu X with one even more Gaga-esque: Poker Face. 

On this subject, Soror Neferusobek recently asked me on what occasion the idea of Thelema Hold’em (or Zug Hold’em)—the most exhilarating and utterly ruinous poker variant ever invented, and one that’s all the rage in our Sect—came to us. 

It was, dear friends, in 2009 e.v., during a Poker Marathon we completed in Divonne-les-Bains.

I was so unserious back then… 

In my Diary from that time, I sketched with a frivolous pen a detailed account of that stay—I share it with you tonight in confidence: even if you’re not particularly keen on poker, this read should be, for you, a relatively painless way to learn a thing or two about the Ups and Downs of life. 

À Outrance: The Seven Days of Divonne

Among all the spa towns where no one ever goes for a cure, I have a marked fondness for Divonne-les-Bains, a pleasant French enclave in Switzerland, essentially dedicated to gambling and tax evasion. 

I just spent seven days of pure delight there, reveling, in the rare moments when I oxygenated myself, in the countless benefits of its alpine air—I feel brand new :) 

A week, then, entirely devoted to Texas Hold’em—€500 table—Net profit: €19,906—If I were married, I’d be in trouble… 

My love for this hamlet of rentiers, where the square meter is the most expensive in France, doesn’t just come from the fact that you rarely encounter poor people there—it stems from a youthful romance, my passion for a sublime Divonnaise girl, a student at Ferney-Voltaire, whom I’d meet every weekend, and with whom, over a few months, I exhausted all the possibilities human eroticism offers in terms of locations, innovations, positions, aids, and perversions. 

I’m pretty sure we hold several world records. 

At any rate, to my knowledge, there’s nothing we didn’t do: the most seasoned tantrics look like Amish husbands by comparison, and every Marc Dorcel film like a sweet little romance. 

Then, one fine morning, my partner informed me that, having explored with me all that lust had to offer, she was happy to proceed, without regret, to the Catholic marriage she’d longed for with a boy she met at World Youth Day—and that I could take my leave; I was left sheepish, with the not-so-flattering feeling of having been, for six months, a living dildo. 

Those were the good old days :) 

Sunday. First night: table as usual—a mix: a few naive youngsters who think they’re Matt Damon because they know the odds, weathered fifty-somethings almost instantly on tilt, and, of course, poor suckers whose game mostly consists of poses copied from Gus Hansen. 

I clean them out. Absolutely everything. To the point that, when I go to cash out, the pit boss, despite himself, has his face askew and his hips twisted. 

I glide through the night. Making love to an Englishwoman is just masturbation. 

Monday. Second night: a beautiful slowplay with A-A. The runt I bust out stares at me like I’m raping his grandmother. 

I suppose it’s the first poker hand he’s ever witnessed, the democratization of the game having established, in all-public circles, a kind of tacit convention to play nothing but randomly, which, in its vagueness, allows one to accuse the other of insolent luck when they win through skill, and to boast of extraordinary psychological subtlety when winning on pure chance… 

These people deserve to be fleeced.

Tuesday. Sloth, sloth, sloth… 

Fix tells me he met Jennifer Lopez in a Paris club and exchanged two words with her, under the gaze of a bodyguard with an extraordinarily hostile, furrowed face. 

— “I wouldn’t like that…” 

— “Eh… He’s just doing his gorilla job…” 

— “No. I wouldn’t like to meet JLo.” 

— “???” 

— “You know that weird feeling when you run into someone intimidating with whom, the night before, you dreamed you were making love?... It’s strange, it inhibits you… Everyone’s had that experience at least once, like being questioned by the English teacher you were taking doggy-style in a dream a few hours earlier…” 

— “Very true, it’s inhibiting…”  

—“So imagine what it must be like to make small talk in 2009 with the person you’ve been jerking off to since 1999!!! No, it’s a lost cause…” 

Third night: after hours of dead calm, a fine bit of acting on my part. I’ve got K-K. I limp in. A slimy, shifty fatso with the sly, servile grin of a weasel raises me. 

Everyone folds. I call. 

Flop: K-K-10. 

Ouch. I’m first to act. How do I force this sneaky filth, named Jean-Luc, to hand over the stacks of chips behind which, thanks to his scoliosis, he’s barely visible?

I check. He does too. 

Turn: J. 

I check again, hoping he’s chasing the straight. 

Bingo, he bets huge. 

I pretend to deliberate endlessly. Then call with all the timidity I can muster. 

River: a worthless 7. 

Terrible moment… I can’t risk checking in ambush and wasting my four kings… 

So I go all-in: after once again seeming to wrestle with dreadful dilemmas for an abnormally long time, I fake a tilt, shouting, “Oh, screw it! All-in!”—and I shove my box forward with bitterness, stand up, start buttoning my jacket, gathering my things… 

Slowly… slowly… the ersatz makes up his mind and pushes his stack in with muffled care…

LOL :) Stu Ungar, the greatest poker player of all time, said there’s nothing more thrilling than the look on a mediocre player who thinks he’s an expert when he realizes he’s been had. I confirm! :) 

Jean-Luc, seeing my hand, instantly morphed into an extra from an Elie Wiesel film and physically shrank by a good three centimeters. Maybe five. 

After re-buying, it took him another solid hour to regain a human appearance and say to me, with veiled threats in his voice: “I’ll remember this, sir… I’ll remember this…” 

Wednesday. Fourth night: Blackout. I play tight while sipping. 

Thursday. Charlot has me try a rum-based cocktail that completely blows me away. A few neurons short and a few chromosomes extra, I mock the rolls of an American tourist’s wife a bit too loudly; her husband, utterly elephantine, demands an explanation, and I pretend not to understand his gibberish while continuing my lousy jabs. 

I’d learn the next day that I owe my physical integrity to the cool-headedness of my companions, who dragged me out of the bar while the staff held the line. 

Fifth night: Not in any state to play. Plus, Charlot’s found himself a girl with one of the finest asses I’ve ever seen in my life. 

When I compliment him on it, adding, quite accurately, that she “really gives me a raging hard-on” (sic), he darkens and tells me it’s not a girlfriend but his little sister. I go to bed. 

Personal note: If, by some miracle, these lines fall under the eyes of the very beautiful auburn-haired young lady, clearly from an excellent family, to whom, last Friday, the tiny Malagasy waiter at the Baccara brasserie in Divonne-les-Bains held the door as she left, saying “Thank you, miss!”—and who replied to this humble employee, “Thank you for what, monkey?”—may she kindly leave me a message, and consider that the tall gentleman having breakfast seated at the back left already has the honor of asking for her hand. 

We spend the afternoon playing Thelema Hold’em, the chicest game of the moment: get yourself a deck of the Tarot painted by Lady Frieda Harris under Aleister Crowley’s direction; keep only the Minor Arcana and Honors; then play, as if it were a regular deck, an alternation of Pineapple and 2-7 Lowball, in No Limit. 

You’ll tell me how it goes :) 

Sixth night: my toughest session. 

Not technically, since the hands I played posed no strategic issues, but because of a smug, fat idiot, dumb as a tenor, who had total luck that night. 

At the penultimate hand, I found myself heads-up with this boor, who’d been utterly invincible for six hours and chip leader beyond belief. 

I had suited A-Q, and the board showed Q-10-8-9 rainbow—giving me top pair with the best kicker possible but leaving me losing, whatever the river, if, as I suspected, this flabby moron had come in with a jack. 

He raises hard. 

I hesitate and choose (I must have been tilting!!!) to call. 

Then comes an Irish Coffee, ordered by the fatso at my suggestion. 

“Oumphhhh!!! It’s super-good!!!!” he exclaims. 

“Isn’t it?” I smile, eyes glued to the dealer’s hands. 

River: 3 of spades. He shoves all-in. 

I think, then laugh and say: “Good hand or not?” 

He replies, “Super-good!” (his word of the night :)), with tons of conviction. 

But you don’t fool old Shumule: the tone he used for the Irish Coffee (sincere) had nothing to do with the one he used for his hand. 

The downside of a limited vocabulary: I knew instantly he was bluffing. 

— “Call.” 

And the ex-chip leader pales, showing a pitiful A-K—a famous hand but, in this case, crushed by my pair of queens. 

Saturday. Colossal ruckus at the restaurant. 

Face-to-face with an ex, stunningly beautiful but who, at the time of our breakup, had loudly proclaimed everywhere her firm intent to gut me.

She makes a visible (oh, so visible) grimace when she sees me roll in. 

Me, old-school boxer style, I rise to the challenge—I sit next to her and launch into my grand charm offensive. The ice melts fast. 

Soon we’re best buddies, giggling like two old party pals—Alas! with the wine’s help, she moves to personal digs, then reprimands, and, despite the pleas of all the guests, to a full-blown scene.

Soon, she’s all you can hear, berating me in this poor restaurant… 

The waiter steps in… She tells him to buzz off… He insists… She elbows him!!!... Here we go!... “Get lost, jackass!!!” LOL… 

He tries again: “Call me the manager!!!” she screams… 

The poor waiter turns green—but what choice does he have? The whole place heard, manager included, who rushes over, all honey: “I’m sorry, miss, I’ll send another waiter…” 

She calms down a bit. We have dessert and coffee in relative peace. 

Sadly, as we’re leaving, the waiter who’d so annoyed my friend dares to reappear between her and the coatroom, asking her to intervene with the manager on his behalf… “He fired me because of you, miss…” 

“Oh, you!!! You’re starting to piss me off!!!” she starts yelling again.  

The manager rushes back, offers us a digestif, says to his ex-waiter, “You’re still here?” and smooths things over… 

Fifteen minutes later, in the cool alleys, my friend walks in silence, lost in thought. 

Then, snapping out of her reverie, she says: “Well, in the end, that waiter took the fall for you… He got sacked, and it serves you right!” 

Seventh night: poker being life in miniature, the cards you’re dealt are just a matter of luck or, if you will, karma. 

The difference between winning and losing, as everyone knows, lies in reading the opponent. But even then, there’s always someone more perceptive than you. 

The real secret is magical thinking. 

Take this Saturday night, for example: in the ultimate heads-up, I’m second in chips, just barely, and the chip leader, an excellent player, has just re-raised me for my entire stack. 

I’ve got J-J, and the board shows K-10-A-A-5. 

It’s obvious I should fold. 

But I’m so invested in the hand that I waver. 

My opponent gives nothing away. 

I’m about to fold when I notice, around his neck, a pendant with the Chinese ideogram for the lunar sign of the Pig. And the answer dawns on me, clear as day: “I’m a lunar Rat (yes… I know… it’s been much remarked upon…), the one that follows the Pig in the cycle of years and thus supplants it… It’s an omen: I have to win…” 

Stupid, you say? Yet I shove my stack in, and the showdown reveals he had only suited Q-10…

So there you have the gist of my stay in Divonne, which isn’t quite over yet, since I’m writing these lines from my room at the Grand Hôtel-Domaine de Divonne.

Vacations are like poker games, and like life itself: we’ve had ups and downs… we’ve had to put up with fools, mediocrities, and villains… but, all in all, we had a blast, and we’re sorry when it ends. 

— Sir Shumule, August 2009 e.v. 

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 10° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 8° ♉︎ : ☽︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.