The Hangover of the Hierophant: A Thelemic Love Letter from the Golden Ruins

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

I have spent the entire day, quite shamelessly, immersed in rereading my Magical Record from July–August 2009 e.v., which Soror Jezebel recently sent to me in my cell (Cf. Never Liked Moby).

It is one of the extremely rare manuscripts of mine that the so-called “judicial power” (sic) in Old Grey Land was unable to physically seize during the Great Troubles of the Year Vviii, and it will therefore be monstrously valuable later on.

I am, by the way, quite pleased that such a beautiful volume chronicling our Hours of High Light managed to escape the tentacles of those mutants.

They have no sense of humour whatsoever.

I mean: when I declared, during my appearance in First Instance at the Correctional Court of Cusset, that “It was while fisting Judge Anthony ‘Abu’ Miraoui that Gutenberg got the idea of inventing the hand puppet,” I was not guaranteeing the literal historicity of the event — I was JOKING. The unfortunate Miraoui nevertheless actually sued me for defamation over that quip :)

Dear friends, allow me to share with you (so that we may measure the contrast, admire the chiaroscuro between two eras separated by only seventeen years, and thus lament together the notion of Impermanence, which is the favourite wickedness of the demiurge ‘Because’, sworn enemy of the Old Serpent of the City of Edfu, Hadit our Master, patron of “that which remains” (AL 2, 9)), allow me, I say, to share with you a few playful pages from this Grimoire…

For example — this entry from August 3rd (At the time I had the habit, every morning, of systematically drawing, in a bibliomantic spirit, a verse from our Books upon waking, whatever the hour or circumstances):

I drew this — but I must confess I had to read it three times through the champagne haze and the delightful ache in every noble limb before the letters stopped dancing the cha-cha:

“He is like a man of thirty, whose eyes are the eyes of a youth, and whose skin is the skin of a child; and he is arrayed in a robe of gold and scarlet, and he hath upon his forehead a golden mitre, and in his hand is a sceptre.”

Ah, the Hierophant!!!

How perfectly he mocks me this morning. For here I sit — Sir Shumule, pure product of Old France, idle nobleman and occasional Mage — in the ruins of what can only be described as a night that would have made even the Emperor Commodus blush and take notes.

That day I was on the Coast, and I was being very descriptive, far less elliptical than usual (special dedication to the Misanthropic Thelemite, who is a fan of Balzac and therefore of endless descriptions):

The mansion (a discreet little palazzo on the edge of the lagoon, borrowed from a friend who owes me several favours and one rather compromising video) looks as though Babalon herself had thrown a tantrum in it.

Silken robes, lace underthings, and several strategic pieces of expensive lingerie are draped over chandeliers like victory flags.

Empty bottles of Veuve Clicquot and a suspicious number of half-melted candles form a chaotic altar to the goddess of Excess.

In the pool outside, three or four of last night’s goddesses are still floating lazily on inflatable unicorns, wearing nothing but suntan oil and satisfied smiles.

The air smells of jasmine, sweat, patchouli, and the unmistakable musk of thoroughly accomplished Sex Magick.

I remember that day very clearly — even though I had taken a whole load of really terrible stuff for the memory the night before!

I woke — or rather, was gently extracted from unconsciousness — by the soft laughter of at least seven young women (I counted; the eighth was making coffee, bless her).

One of them, a breathtaking creature with eyes like Nuit and hips that could launch a thousand ships (or at least sink several yachts), kissed my forehead and whispered, “Good morning, David.”

Another handed me a glass of fresh orange juice spiked with just enough hair of the dog to make the room stop spinning.

A third was already planning the afternoon’s continuation: more music, more bodies, more champagne, and — she insisted — a yacht this time, “because last night you promised us the sea.”

I was so unserious back then! — But already firm in my principles and faithful to my Magical Oaths:

I have, once and for all, chosen the Way of the dandy adventurer. Yet even I must admit that last night’s working surpassed my usual standards.

We began with the Nu-Sphere Ritual, naturally, then Liber V, but once the Temple was fully open, the ceremony… shall we say… devolved gloriously into pure, unfiltered, multi-partner gnosis.

I played the central role with the gravity and enthusiasm of a true Hierophant — mitre optional, sceptre very much engaged.The girls (all of them initiates or natural-born priestesses of Nuit, I assure you) took turns objectifying me with such joyful, athletic precision that I felt like [illegible]: the mansion, the pool, the luxury, the half-naked beauties attending to every whim — except in this version, I was the one being worshipped, devoured, and occasionally passed around like the sacred Host at a particularly enthusiastic Gnostic Mass.

“Swift as a trodden serpent turn and strike!” (AL 3, 42) — The serpent, I am pleased to report, performed admirably — though this morning it is reminding me, with a certain tender soreness, that even divine weapons need occasional maintenance.

And yet, amid the glorious wreckage, a tiny voice of aristocratic self-deprecation whispers: “Really, Shumule? Again?”

For here I am, a thirty-something nobleman with a hangover that feels like the combined wrath of the Qliphoth and a mild case of divine retribution, preparing for another full day of non-stop revelry.

The schedule, as relayed to me by my charming general staff of priestesses, includes: sunrise yoga (naked), brunch (with more champagne), a boat excursion, several hours of aquatic frolic, dinner, and then — they assure me — “whatever happens after dark.”

I shall, of course, rise to the occasion. One does not become Sir Shumule by declining invitations from the Goddess.

The Hierophant may have a hangover, but his sceptre remains undaunted, his mitre (metaphorical) still askew in the most becoming fashion, and his True Will as ironclad as ever.

Let the day unfold as it will — more bodies, more laughter, more ecstatic resorption of the Many into the One (and then back again, repeatedly).

And it was then, historically I believe, the very first time I resorted to my Legendary Mantra:

Whatever happens, it will be glorious, for I am Sir Shumule and even my disasters are divine.

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 0° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 18° ♊︎ : ☽︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

 𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Diamond in the Glass (Karmic Glitch)

To Cleopatra VII Thea Philopator
To Jingū Kōgō
To Helen of Troy

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

This day’s Holy Reading includes the following Verse: 

“Thou shalt dwell among the people as a precious diamond among cloudy diamonds, and crystals, and pieces of glass. Only the eye of the just merchant shall behold thee, and plunging in his hand shall single thee out and glorify thee before men.” (Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente, 5:20)

— Which, obviously, by a highly subjective association of ideas, sends me back to my present situation and to the considerations that follow:   

I am being reproached these days for systematically beginning my posts with an inventory of the letters I receive. 

This apparently gives the blog the tone of a “letters to the editor column” (sic), which clashes with the high spiritual standard that the Serious Thelemite has come to expect in these parts.

That’s quite fair…

But, dear friends, it cannot have escaped your notice that I am currently in PRISON: here, the distribution of mail is the most thrilling, the most hard-core, the most charged with breathless suspense of the entire twenty-four hours of the day!

Boredom is the tutelary deity of Houses of Detention — it is diametrically opposed to my religion and, as one can imagine, particularly trying in my personal case…

As everyone knows, 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 have also witnessed a heap of strange things in nearly every circle where the arts of mysticism and magick 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 had been born a social case, and shared the bed of more women than if I had 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. (See Confessions of a Hermit of Hadit)

Well then! Prison is as boring as Romania and as sophisticated as the Congo — I can speak of both: I HAVE been to Romania (a rather unexciting country where I was researching Vlad Tepes — I visited an Orthodox Christian monastery there: the superior brother had eyes that would fuck you from twenty paces) — and I HAVE been to the Congo (where I devoted my stay to putting the main voodoo psychotropics through their paces: Belangwa, Bombambo, Kongolamba, Misosoli, Yombela Nkasa, etc. I’ll tell you about that another day…)

It remains for me to explore my past lives — in order to try to understand the origin of the absurd karmic glitch that has landed me here, bored out of my mind…

The most plausible hypothesis, in my opinion, is that I was King Sardanapalus — hence the invariable hatred that eunuchs and slaves bear me in this present life: they were doubtless sacrificed during my suicide back then…

But that is pure speculation: apart from that, the Visions procured by my attempts at karmic recollection always look far too much like they were produced by Marc Dorcel, scripted by Eli Cross, and directed by Michael Ninn to be considered entirely reliable — not to mention that they invariably end in the arms of Helen of Troy, the Empress Himiko (Jingū Kōgō), or Cleopatra herself, and that it all borders on a running gag.

Anyway! I have equaled Beau Brummell in the art of throwing feasts in prison — and all in all, I’ve had it easy: Brummell, at least, didn’t have drones!

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 29° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 3° ♊︎ : ☉︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.   

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Cosmic Cock Shock

Unto Nu.

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

I have just received a very pleasant letter from a boy I once knew — a strict “Yellow Hat” Buddhist, which is admittedly less boring than being Canadian, but still not exactly what you’d call funky…

At the time, I had spent two hours chatting online with him. He found The Book of the Law “violent” (sic). I eventually replied:

“The legitimate Dalai Lama is Tommy Mottola: any man who deserved to marry first Mariah Carey and then Thalía must necessarily have been at least Siddhārtha Gautama in a previous life.”

Dear friends, this Sunday’s Holy Reading is Liber LXV: Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figurâ אדני, Chapter 5, verses 13 to 16.

13. They shall change in their destruction, even as two dark stars that crash together in the abyss, and blaze up in an infinite burning.

Commentary: This is the very principle of the Hymen.

The Heathen do not suspect that everything is holy (that is to say, that everything is Sex Magick), including the domestic scene with terrifying screams and broken crockery.

The only thing that really matters is sexual activity — “they” therefore tend to surround it with aberrant conventions, all of which serve to pasteurize the libido.

To quote the late, dear Sally (may the gods grant her the accomplishment of her True Will; yea, the accomplishment of her True Will): “The most beautiful of compliments is premature ejaculation.” 

What I mean is: if Hispanic women are so prodigiously arousing, it is because they have fully understood the following Arcane:

To charm the Serpent, one must be Nuit; to tame the Beast, one must be Babalon. Let woman therefore be like the Universe and Nature herself: simultaneously hyper-attractive and hyper-terrifying.

14. All this while did Adonai pierce my being with his sword that hath four blades; the blade of the thunderbolt, the blade of the Pylon, the blade of the serpent, the blade of the Phallus.

Commentary: Of this verse, the Prophet (blessing & worship to him) says:

“Adonai: Aleph is the swastika or Thunderbolt by shape; Daleth means Door or Pylon; Nun refers to Scorpio, the Serpent; Yod is the Phallus (Yod of Tetragrammaton — considered as the inmost and simplest idea).”

From this I deduce (like Lao-Tzu, first among the Magi): Return is the movement of the Divine.

My Ipseity — secret as the Hermit’s Lamp, the royalty of Merlin disguised as a beggar (cf. AL II, 58), the furia erotica of the fierce virgin, the vital principle in the grain of wheat, etc. — manifests in my raging libido that surges “Swift as a trodden serpent” (AL III, 42), provoking a cock shock of cosmic dimension!

Thus my rutting Pylon forces, not without difficulty, a passage through the narrow Gate of the Empress, and I attain the One — that is, the orgasmic illumination of the resorption of the Two into the Zero.

That is the Direction of Life; that is, the inverse of the return to the Origin (the literal meaning of תשובה), which is אֲדֹנָי — an obvious liturgical analogy (cf. Liber XV). And since Hebrew is read from right to left…

15. Also he taught me the holy unutterable word Ararita, so that I melted the sixfold gold into a single invisible point, whereof naught may be spoken.

Commentary: Resolution of the Great Paradox stated in the previous verse: אראריתא, notarikon of Achad Rosh Achdotho Rosh Ichudo Temurato Achad, which means “The One is Thy Root, the One is Thy Ipseity, Thy Permutation is the One” (cf. Liber Ararita, 1 : 0).

16. For the Magistry of this Opus is a secret magistry; and the sign of the master thereof is a certain ring of lapis-lazuli with the name of my master, who am I, and the Eye in the Midst thereof.

Commentary: The Prophet (blessing & worship to him) gives, regarding this verse, a great many instructions concerning the Ring of Nuit, from which we deduce that VVVVV (“By the power of truth I have conquered the universe in my lifetime”) is the Magical Motto of the Archetypal Master.

Now, if we consider once again Lao-Tzu, of blessed memory, as the Archetypal Master in question, we observe that, having reached the pinnacle of Wisdom, he left China, devoted himself to wandering — so as not to witness the decadence of the Zhou — and ended up alone and misunderstood. 

And this, once again, constitutes an illustration of the Great Paradox stated in verse 14.

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 29° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 25° ♉︎ : ☉︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Never Liked Moby

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

Jez has just sent me, from our HQ in Ramatuelle, my Magical Journal from July–August 2009 e.v., accompanied by a charming letter that contains this funny note: 

« It’s a good thing you don’t like blondes (see the entry of August 12th). You are, as we know, so narcissistic that if you were going out with Margot Robbie, while you were making love, you’d close your eyes and imagine you were jerking off. Frankly, it would be a waste. »

What a JOY to reconnect with those Days of Great Light! 

I have the blood of Des Esseintes and Sardanapalus running through my veins, and the splendour of this book with its precious violet leather binding, embossed with the Mark of the Beast in pure gold, bears ample witness to the fact. 

The unheard-of refinement of the object, the perfumed Japanese washi paper, the scarlet silk bookmarks, all exude an aura of unbridled luxury to which I am particularly sensitive.

But what a terrifying aging effect this re-reading of the Diary has just dealt me!

There is not a single entry in the entire Journal that a person under fifty could possibly understand!

I read:

Yesterday, an absolutely delightful day, beneath the feudal towers of the family castle. 

From Paris I brought back, along with a slight weariness of multiculturalism, an old friend, Charles-André W (a.k.a. Charlot), — an extraordinary Thelemite, — and we spent the whole afternoon as if projected into a painting by Gustave Moreau — reclining on deckchairs, contemplating from the terrace the deities playing in the splendour of the park. 

We gorged ourselves on idleness, Singapore Slings, and silence.

It must be said that the fresh morning, devoted to shooting practice, had on the contrary been extremely active, dry, and thunderous.

Behind the outbuildings we have an old orchard that resembles a secret Venetian courtyard, and whose door I suspect to be inter-dimensional: a shot from a .44 AMP Automag pistol, which the twenty-six hectares of park would normally echo for fifty kilometres around, is mysteriously muffled there, and reaches the ears of the local peasants (who honour me with their esteem, and whom I would not wish to spoil their leisure for anything in the world) like the plik of an air rifle, or those of the nearby flabby, pink Dutch invaders (whose existence I would be delighted to ruin enough to make them return — that heap of lobster-coloured lard — to mope in their Low Countries, but who have the annoying habit of bothering our gendarmes at the slightest noise coming from the château). It is therefore there, quite naturally, that I have set up my shooting range.

By the immortal gods! Who still uses a .44 AMP Automag pistol?!

And this too:

I have my habits in a certain internet café… 

For some time now, the manageress has been irritating me prodigiously with her pinched way of trying to act “Parisian”, and especially with her excessive displays of prudery: when she catches sight, over a customer’s shoulder, of a daring image or a somewhat spicy clip, she makes a point of showing her disapproval, and the slightest swaying choreography earns you a prudish little look, bordering on hostile…

I hate the neo-Puritanism of this post-9/11 era with all the force of my soul.

Who still remembers what internet cafés were?!

I continue:

What characterises Old Grey Land is the proscription of eroticism and its confinement to dark, shameful corners… 

The Christian vermin (to the lions!) have made a “sin” of the impulse that gives us life; the communists hunted “lustful vipers”… 

Today man must choose his destiny: it is Saint Alexander VI or Savonarola… There is no other option… 

Personally, I have chosen… And it is not Savonarola… 

Beauty, joy, freedom — which are the necessary adjuvants to eroticism — are contrary to Abrahamism itself: the only true rampart against Old Grey Land is la Voile Rouge…

Who still remembers (weep, my eyes!) what la Voile Rouge was?!?

And this again:

A little while ago, at the Internet Café, I was wandering on YouTube… 

I stumble upon Kylie Minogue… Can’t Get You Out of My Head. This video gives me an immediate, maximal, painful erection…  

What to do?… 

Impossible to walk to the exit, or else at goose-step pace, and even then: people will think I’m trying to steal an umbrella or something… Yet I keep getting harder, and I feel on the verge of tissue necrosis… 

Only one solution: a quick stroke of the wrist, unseen and unknown, in my pocket — and, as they say, everything for the dry-cleaner… 

Right. I replay the clip and begin the operation with the discretion required in an overcrowded cybercafé…  

Only, here’s the thing: the rising orgasm announces itself as enormous… devastating… un-be-liev-able… In short, I am preparing, still impassive, to take the ride of my life… all while dreading that the violence of the thing might punch a hole through my trousers… then sweep the entire clientele of the café away like a giant Kärcher pressure washer… then knock down the pylons and bus shelters in the street… 

The “annunciatory apnoea” kicks in… the pressure rises… rises… prodigious… and, at the precise instant of the orgasmic peak — I insist: at the precise instant I touch bliss — the clip ends, the playlist continues, and Moby suddenly appears on my screen. :/

And I have NEVER liked Moby!

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 27° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 4° ♉︎ : ♀︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Funk It and Throw a Party : An Epistle to Frater Y

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It’s official! Frater Y. is popping the question this weekend in Sèvres, over the Sunday roast, and he’s absolutely terrified! 

(I’d be scared too, mind you, if I had to spend a Sunday in Sèvres…)  

I keep repeating to him the fundamental Shumulism: The crucial moments of existence are like pitbulls — they can sense fear — But he won’t listen. 

Y. accuses me of “talking from a position of ease” (since, as everyone knows, my wife Chloé is so cool and badass that SHE was the one who, at the age of eighteen, very solemnly and gravely asked my parents for my hand in marriage). 

He probably doesn’t know that I myself, many years ago, had to perform a similar manoeuvre to the one awaiting him this Sunday — and in my case, I must admit, it ended in complete fiasco… 

One August evening in the South of France, after seventy-two hours of particularly heated orgies without sleep, my friend Fix and I were cooling off, slumped on a bench.  

From there we had a view into a garden where a charming family was just starting dinner: a very patriarchal patriarch, two young girls dressed in Cyrillus, a mother straight out of Little House on the Prairie, all of them eating melon with port. 

The scene moved us deeply. 

The kindly simplicity of their ways, the peace, the quiet happiness of these people — all of it awakened violent nostalgia in the hearts of us inveterate party animals. 

I remember feeling something like a tear trembling at the corner of my beautiful eyelashes. 

Fix was in the same state. 

“Listen,” I said to him, “we’re idiots to be lamenting like this. All we have to do is ask for the two girls’ hands in marriage, and that’s it…”  

No sooner said than done. 

We took a while to find the gate, and even longer to find the doorbell. 

The father eventually came to open the door. 

I introduced myself and declared that I had the honour of asking, for myself and my friend François-Xavier, the hand of each of his daughters. 

The worthy man must have misunderstood our intentions, because he answered us with a flood of invectives in which the words “drunks,” “hooligans,” and “wankers” came up with painful frequency. 

“Your refusal, sir, would lose nothing by being expressed in less vulgar terms,” I articulated as best I could while we withdrew. 

Ah, those were the days :) 

Frater Y., for his part, reminded me earlier that the akashic reminiscences of the Prophet recorded in Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente include the moment when, newly married and on his way to the wedding night, he found the demon Choronzon waiting for him on the threshold of the nuptial suite… 

Do you remember the verse? 

On the threshold stood the fulminant figure of Evil, the Horror of emptiness, with his ghastly eyes like poisonous wells. He stood, and the chamber was corrupt; the air stank. He was an old and gnarled fish more hideous than the shells of Abaddon. — Liber Cordis, 4:34. 

I. Snow Leopard in the Seabed  

Obviously, coming face to face with Cthulhu as a prelude to the wedding night is a bit of a boner-killer, and most people see this episode as an ultra-stressful horror-movie scene or a convoluted bad trip. 

Not me: I chant this Holy Verse every time a guard appears at the door of my cell, or when I catch sight, through the window, of a particularly ugly inmate (I know this one guy who, when he smiles, matches the description in the verse perfectly. Just add a baseball cap and it’s spot on! Incredible…).  

After which I recite “We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery” (AL II, 21) as an Exorcism — given that the “prison population” is almost exclusively made up of outcasts (the inmates) and of unfit people (the prison staff) — which gives a Thelemite in captivity the constant sensation of being a snow leopard who has wandered into a marine documentary. It’s very exotic. 

II. Me And Choronzon Blues  

Speaking of exorcisms, inmates and prison guards — that is to say, of demonology — what am I saying? Of goetia!… What exactly is the demon Choronzon who tried to ruin the wedding night of a guilgul of the priest of the princes Ankh-af-na-khonsu (blessing & worship to him)? 

During the blessed hours of our dear Abbey of Thelema (August 2019 – April 2022), one morning I received the following unexpected question: 

“From GH the Zenist to Sir Shumule the Thelemite, greetings!

Happiness and gallant success! 

I cannot manage, Master, to understand exactly what the demon CHORONZON — described by John Dee and Sir Edward Kelly, who has become the ‘devil’ in Thelemic philosophy — actually represents. 

May I solicit your High Lights on this point? 

Nine prostrations.” 

I had replied: 

My dear Zen friend, 

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

You are a seductive mystery destined for a sublime fate who, like every one of us, has a dark side. 

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

It is the piece of the sickness-of-the-world that has landed on your plate. 

Choronzon is the name we give to this mess of repressed desires, ego bruises, and silly self-delusions that you deliberately ignore because it is unflattering and differs, in painful proportions, from what you would like to believe you are. 

Carl Gustav Jung calls it “the Shadow”; Christians call it the Evil One; 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. 

Consequently, Choronzon is also what the Alchemists transform into gold: not something intrinsically “evil,” but a subordinate who — like all stalkers, all affection-starved bunny-boilers, and all dismissed lackeys — becomes hysterical through overcompensation because he is ignored. 

Thus man compulsively turns caricaturally low-rent in order to stop suffering. If you neglect to “stamp down the wretched & the weak” (AL II, 21), the wretched & the weak will bite you in the calf: they will systematically sabotage your efforts, unless you make the effort to aggressively identify them and alchemically transmute them: “Refuse none but thou shalt know & destroy the traitors” (AL III, 42) — Isn’t it well known that complaining about the shortcomings of others is to betray one’s own failings? 

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

Like the One Ring of Sauron, it wants to be found: hence the Freudian slips, the pseudo-accidents, the stupid inhibitions — the dangerously repressed libidinous kinks, 

Me and Choronzon were walking side by side, 

I’m gonna beat my woman until I get satisfied … 

the “terrible adventures” of which Saint Friedrich Nietzsche, of blessed memory, tells us that they eventually make us suspect that the person to whom they happen is himself someone terrible. 

See, dear Zen friend! The dwarf who refuses to admit he is a dwarf will be thrown (or rather launched, since he is a dwarf) onto a basketball court in front of millions of viewers: whoever denies what he doesn’t like in himself will have his nose rubbed in it. 

So be an Alchemist rather than a mediocre hoarder! Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem: “Until you have made the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate,” Carl Jung also said — or, in my tireless formula: what you flee is your Salvation. 

Love is the law, love under will. 

— Sir Shumule 

III. Joyful Noises Only (Exorcism by Voluptuousness) 

Speaking of horror films, the only word whose capital letter seems incongruous in our verse is precisely “Horror,” whose gematria is 681, the same as that of TRVOH: “joyful noises,” “rallying cries,” “blaring music,” etc. 

From which we deduce that anything carrying the idea of PARTY puts Choronzon to flight.  

A Thelemic dwelling, being both a Palace and a Temple, must constantly resound with joyful sounds — and on all Three Planes, since 681 = 217 × 3 and 217 is the gematria of BIRH (“palace” or “temple”). 

Therefore, recommendations to Frater Y. and to anyone about to found a home as he is: 

. On the religious plane: rituals “performed with joy & beauty” (AL II, 21). 

. On the social plane: party all day in the salons. 

. On the physical plane: cries of voluptuousness constantly rising from the bedrooms. 

Such is the triple antidote to Choronzon — therefore, very logically, the sine qua non condition of Happiness — and the Supreme Exorcism. 

IV. The Way of the Beḥedit (Funk It and Throw a Party) 

That is why the word “feast” is so recurrent — so mantrically recurrent — in the Discourse of the Old Serpent of the City of Edfu, Hadit our Master, who is the Exorcist par excellence (AL II, 7) and constantly enjoins us to feast — that is, to feast without cease.  

The famous Bootsy Collins Theorem — “When the bailiff knocks on the door and you don’t have the money to pay, say ‘funk it’ and throw a party!” — is not a punchline, but an Arcane of Operative Magick. 

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD. 

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.  

Love is the law, love under will. 

 — ☉︎ in 27° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 20° ♈︎ : ♃︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ. 

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

The Sleeves of the Beast

To Soror Hypatia 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

Frater Sicariōn has — so writes Frater Alcide Nikopol (coolest Magical Name ever!) in a rather funny letter that has just been brought to me — a very pretty formula to describe the attitude of a Brother (let us call him NNN) who tends to use the fact that he helps me a great deal and that his specific task is to watch over, from afar, the material conditions of my Exile and Captivity, in order to claim for himself all sorts of prerogatives and special privileges within our Sect — Sicariōn says of NNN: “He hides in the sleeves of the Beast.”

(I keep an amused memory of my first exchange with Brother Alcide Nikopol: he had confessed to me that throughout his life he had “always behaved like a complete idiot…” to which I replied: “Ben Affleck divorced Jennifer Garner and you think you’re an idiot?!?”)

Otherwise, he recommends that I “do some sport.”

What sport? 

Apart from golf (but no judge is going to grant me a day-release to play a round — these people couldn’t care less if I lose my swing!), I have only ever competed in two sports: modern pentathlon (but the mere idea of guns and foils tends to make the guards nervous) and polo (the parcel officer, I know him, will never let a horse through) — As a fan and supporter, I am only passionate about two sports that are never broadcast on the television channels this prison has access to: sumō (no great regret — I have been an orphan since Asashoryu retired anyway) and roller-derby (no great regret — I have been an orphan since Cash Pistache retired anyway).

So: sport, no sport, as Churchill used to say.

My remarks on the Epstein Affair have also violently upset Alcide, and he would like me to continue the Study of Liber LXV where they left us…

It is a good reaction — Hermeneutics, at least, is a sport! I’m on it! (As soon as the Rihanna concert at the O2, currently airing on France 4, is over, of course… To interrupt RiRi is to interrupt Nuit — we would incur the august wrath of the Goddess).

***

There we go! #Navy

We therefore read:

41. (The scribe was wroth thereat. He spake: O Adonai and my master, I have borne the inkhorn and the pen without pay, in order that I might search this river of Amrit, and sail thereon as one of ye. This I demand for my fee, that I partake of the echo of your kisses.)  

42. (And immediately it was granted unto him.) 

43. (Nay; but not therewith was he content. By an infinite abasement unto shame did he strive. Then a voice:) 

44. Thou strivest ever; even in thy yielding thou strivest to yield — and lo! thou yieldest not. 

I. Context : Oddly enough, the Prophet took offence at his Holy Guardian Angel’s last remark (an apparent surge of snobbery, the Angel having been surprised that the Prophet took the emotional states of the little people so much to heart)…

In anger (by way of overcompensation), the Prophet declares that, having freely exercised the sacred function of Scribe (in the hope, after all, that life would henceforth be nothing but a sumptuous cruise on a sacred river toward a paradisiacal island where the orgy is continuous), he demands, as payment, something he describes in a rather roundabout way, but which seems very much to be a Samadhi — and he is instantly granted it.

But (classic backlash) the Prophet then falls into a down phase and begins to heap reproaches upon himself and beat his breast with vehemence.

His Angel then explains the origin of all his problems: the Prophet is trying too hard. 

He strives, the Angel tells him, constantly, in everything he does. 

Even when it comes to the essential practice of “yield,” the Prophet strives to yield — and therefore, inevitably, since yielding is the opposite of striving, he does not yield.

Personally, all these almost bipolar spiritual ups and downs that the Prophet goes through remind me of the ultra-strange switch that preceded the very first time I performed the Ritual of HVD.

(Until then, I only knew HVD in theory: Leptopoecile Sophiae had meticulously detailed its performance and explained the principle of this “direct application of AL I:61 in the form of a meditated Orison,” but the idea of actually practising it had never occurred to me — At the time I was entirely devoted to Liber Resh, the Nu-Sphere Ritual, and Liber V.)

I was spending an absolutely frenetic night in a very high-end escort club where my friend Dilettantis and I (“Semper Ebrius, Semper Erectus, Semper Felix”) were throwing a fabulous party, a brilliant happening entirely inspired by the imagery of Army of Lovers (specifically the music video for Crucified and, above all, Israelism).

Reclining among the cushions, dazed by debauchery, with a super-hot girl on each knee, I was taking a break — when suddenly, for no reason whatsoever, I sprang up like a jack-in-the-box, eyes fixed, face deathly pale, left the club without a word, walked like an automaton to the nearest park, found a deserted spot, raised my (wan) face to the night sky as if avidly searching for an omen.

The sky contained every omen, since it contained all the stars.

I then said, in a blank and extremely solemn voice: “If you love me, O Nuit, and if the joys of your love must redeem us from all pain, then I beg you, do not abandon your Beloved whom the Darkness surrounds…”

And I performed HVD until dawn.

II. Indeed, man is caught in a sandwich between Nuit (Heaven) and Babalon (Earth) and constantly zaps from one to the other in this threesome, as it is written (Tzaddi 36–38).

We desire a life that is a luxurious cruise “on the deck of a zillionaire’s gigayacht, right hand in the champagne cooler, left hand on Rihanna’s arse (!),” heading toward Jeffrey Epstein’s island where Hugh Hefner, surrounded by the entire Playboy stable, celebrates his birthday — a cruise punctuated by sudden sporadic mystical crises that give meaning to a journey which, without them, would be rather hollow for the soul…

The only real obstacle to this project is the ego — personal hysteria — whose restrictions (pretension, anger, guilt) constantly disturb and interrupt our alternating games with the two Goddesses.

Note that anger is not, in itself, forbidden by the Law, provided — Hadit teaches — that it is directed against the “low men,” i.e. the Heathen (AL II:24).

All resentment toward the divine sphere sooner or later leads to an “infinite abasement unto shame.” 

The Gods must never be the object of our wrath: the Heathen are there for that.

III. Moreover, the word “yield” has a gematria of 59, which is that of GVIM, “Heathen,” because yield is the antidote to Old Grey Land.

Of course, one must work without “lust of result” — but is that not the very principle of yield?

I mean: the two Great Masters of yield among the Saints are Lao-Tzu, first among the Magi, and Saint Miguel de Molinos, of blessed memory, who knew (may their merits protect us) what yield cost them: one ended in exile, wandering and misunderstood; the other was condemned to perpetual detention.

IV. Now I, who find myself in exile and in detention, tell you this: 

There are only three Great Misses possible in this world:

— Failing in the duties that the codes of Fin’Amor impose upon us toward Nuit, or toward our wife, her representative on earth. 

— Failing, at the moment of decision, to observe the Precepts taught by Hadit. 

— Taking, on the temporal plane, the side of Old Grey Land against the radiant land of Thelema.

And all three are due to a failure in yield.

We are not given to know our fate in advance, but exile, captivity and error are never grounds for shame — the only shame is that which comes from cowardice.

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 26° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 6° ♈︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Laura Rode Me at the Crillon (While My Teen Date Watched)

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

Last night — thanks to a fleeting little nod-off — I had the following Splendid Nightmare:

I dreamed I was in my beloved Bernstein Suite at the Hôtel de Crillon, sipping an ice-cold Dom Pérignon (wine that foams, of course — but authentically from Reims; that’s one of the advantages of being a French Thelemite), waiting for Anne-Aubépine de V., the youngest daughter of my dear old Taz. 

Without his knowledge, she and I had planned to have an enormous amount of sex — barely legal, by the way, since Anne-Au’ is 19…

She is the archetypal ultra-BCBG blonde from Divonne — really very beautiful, very fresh, very much the kind of girl I used to date when I was a boarder in Switzerland: big Colgate smile, the whole package.

Suddenly, furious shouts came from the corridor! — I rushed to check, flung open the door of my suite, and found Anne-Aubépine on the threshold, tearing into a hair-pulling fight with the prison wardress who gave me that memorable dressing-down on 18 December last (so memorable that I took it as a Christmas present — but I already told you that story).

The wardress (I have since learned her first name is Laura, which etymologically bodes well) informed me that she had to search my suite immediately!

Anne-Aubépine protested: “And our date?! What are we supposed to do now?!” — But, too overwhelmed by Laura’s aggressiveness, I slammed the door in my young friend’s face after letting the uniformed woman in.

I sensed an opportunity — and I was not wrong. 

We threw ourselves at each other and began frantically making love on the corner sofa to the right (the Pillar of Justice).

While Laura was on top of me, vigorously shifting my spine with the power of her hip thrusts, Anne-Au’ appeared behind the terrace window, nose pressed to the glass, hands cupped around her eyes like binoculars, peering inside. 

And Laura, without slowing her imperious gallop, raised her left hand (the Pillar of Mercy) and gave the poor rejected girl a majestic middle finger.

The rest of the dream was essentially athletic — I was unleashed! — I really gave it to my pretty jailer so hard that, from a strictly experimental point of view, I would be curious to know whether, in this reality, the wardress from Moulins-Yzeure Prison was physically able to sit down today.

Upon waking, still steeped in the afterglow of the dream, I decided to explore its meaning through bibliomancy. 

I drew the following verse from the Holy Books (Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente, 2:35):

Where is now the Master? cry the little crazy boys — He is dead! He is shamed! He is wedded! and their mockery shall ring round the world.

And after several hefty spliffs of Isla OG, I roughly concluded the following:

I. Heathens Only Believe in Magick When They’re Dying, Dumped, or Horny

It is true that the Heathen only manage a little Magical Thinking in these three cases…

The proximity of death makes them stammer vague prayers; public humiliation makes them badmouth Friday the 13th, black cats, or ladders; falling in love makes them eagerly consult their horoscope…

But, strangely, they immediately stop believing in the divine mandate of a Master as soon as he betrays his merely mortal nature, as soon as he is publicly pilloried by the media, or as soon as it turns out he has a taste for women…

This does not trouble me: I am an Anti-Tartuffe of Rasputin calibre, faithful to the motto of Saint Friedrich Nietzsche (may his merits protect us): “I would rather be a clown than a saint.”

II. Death Is a Pink Floyd Wall, Love Is Colombian Coffee (And Shakira Conquered the World)  

In fact, to the Totem Test question “What does a wall blocking your path evoke for you?” (supposed to make the subject unconsciously reveal their vision of Death), I had answered: “Pink Floyd, because The Wall.” 

Does this mean I see my demise as a great psychedelic happening and the Afterlife as a hardcore acid trip?…

Or that I have a rose-coloured-glasses reading of the Work of the Great Psychopomp Tahuti (assuming the flamingo is related to the ibis…?)

As for shame, my forehead no longer knows how to blush — I do not even hide my most burning embarrassments (cf. The Altar of Babalon) and I am rather in the style of the Marquis de Sade, whose reaction upon learning the verdict that condemned him to Public Dishonour is well known…

That said, Libertinism is a pixie — Love alone is a god — and to the Totem Test question “What does coffee evoke for you?” (supposed to reveal the subject’s vision of Love), I answered: “Like women and cocaine: fabulous when it comes from Colombia.”

Remember: Alexander and Napoleon had to deploy prodigies of energy and resort to monstrous carnage to make even a small impact on their corner of the planet — but one single hip movement from Shakira, and the whole world burns.

III. ZMN: Dead, Shamed, Wedded – The Threefold Samurai Protocol of Timing 

If we were to transpose this tarologically, we would assign “wedded” to Atu VI (for obvious reasons), “shamed” to Atu XII (idem), and “dead” to Atu XIII (idem).

This gives the sequence Zain, Mem, Nun, which forms the word ZMN, “appointed time.”

Jez pointed out that ZMN contains the Threefold Protocol: on the spiritual plane, “Nuit is my bride” (Zain); on the ethico-philosophical plane, obedience to Hadit perinde ac cadaver (Mem); on the practical plane, serving Ra-Hoor-Khuit “like a samurai serves his daimyo” — for, as Jocho says, “the Way of the samurai is death” (Nun).

In the Threefold Protocol, everything is a question of timing: the right hour for the Rituals, decision-making under pressure for the use of free will, putting the temporal at the service of the Promulgation. 

In other words, we return to our fundamentals: it is when your enemy is upon you that you must decide whether you curl up in the fetal position or explode him — neither before nor after (that is the meaning of “trodden serpent” — AL III, 42).

IV. Treat Death Like Your Favourite Pornstar – The Ultimate Thelemic Crush 

Hadit teaches that the optimal attitude toward death is to desire it — and to desire it intensely (AL II, 74).

Now, the verb he uses is the same one Ra-Hoor-Khuit uses in AL III, 14 (‘Scarlet Concubine of his desire’)— From this we deduce that the most perfectly Thelemic perspective on death is to consider it as one’s crush.

Try, then, to stop a man who sees Death as his official escort, his favourite pornstar, the side-chick/mad mistress who obsesses him, the celebrity crush who haunts his fantasies!

People consider the man who ruins himself for a gold-digger to be mad, and try to shame him — but he is a madman whom nothing could prevent from living as he pleases. He who has the same relationship with Death will receive the same comments — but nothing will prevent him from accomplishing his True Will.

As for “wedded,” given that “Be thou Hadit” is the first commandment of the Law (AL I, 6) and that Hadit calls Nuit “my bride,” I do not believe that a (male or female) celibate can be called a “conscious Thelemite.” — “GOD is Conjugal Harmony,” according to our formula (cf. Passionate Peace), which implies that conjugality must exist in the first place…

So what does this have to do with my dream? 

I don’t see it. 

My shrink could probably tell me, of course, but she intimidates me — Does anyone know a good orthodox-Freudian AI?

Meditate upon this, dear friends, and go your gorgeous ways under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere, and which we call GOD.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 25° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 21° ♓︎ : ♂︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ. 

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌