Like an Oyster

Note: Out of curiosity, I went looking to see which of the (admirable) texts joyfully scattered across this (very good) blog has been, across all periods, the most consulted of all.

It turns out to be a Commentary on the Book of Lapis-Lazuli, entitled “Like an Oyster” (Comme une Huître), published in 2021 e.v. during the blessed hours of our dear Abbey of Thelema.

Since this text has only ever appeared in French, and the overwhelming majority of visitors to this blog are now English-speaking, I am posting today its English version.

Tell me if, like any true French nectar (I was born in Bordeaux), the thing has aged well.

Like An Oyster

Commentary on Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli Adumbratio Kabbalæ Ægyptiorum sub figurâ VII, Chapter 3, verses 8 to 11

Written in the Abbey of Thelema in Vippiacus,

☉︎ in 18° ♊︎ : ☽︎ in 7° ♊︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅴⅰⅰ (June 9, 2021 e.v.)

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

It is the fortieth of the Beautiful Days and Tia has just asked me: "How come your reader fanbase is still so fiercely devoted???... When you troll, fair enough, it's funny... But Thelema is a niche, very serious subject!... The other Thelemite content creators would have a fit if they read your mail: this is straight-up idolatry!"

My secret is that the internet — especially the part devoted to occult sciences — is full of people who draw their energy from their audience, whereas I invert the ratio. It is you who come here for your fix. When you finish reading me, you will feel young, lithe, invincible, and invulnerable. The ladies will deem themselves eminently desirable, and all the gentlemen will feel like the quintessential example of sexual perfection. Small children will inexplicably stop crying as you pass, and disobedient pets will spontaneously offer you their paw to request your instructions. And that's when I write sober. Imagine what awaits you on the days I write truly drunk!

Dear friends, this Wednesday's Reading is from Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli Adumbratio Kabbalæ Ægyptiorum sub figurâ VII, Chapter 3, verses 8 to 11.

8. Terraces of ilex, and tiers of onyx and opal and sardonyx leading up to the cool green porch of malachite.

Commentary: We are visibly still in the palace of the sumptuous Baalkis (cf. Sir Shumule and the Queen of Sheba), or else in the Land of Thelema — and for your shrink, it's the same thing.

On this subject, our dinner debate last night concerned the question: Who is more authentically Babalonian, Cleopatra or Makeda (the Queen of Sheba)?

As for me, I remain faithful to my fixation on Jingū Kōgō, which is probably a sign of a masochistic streak, since Japan largely moved on from female reigns after that of Shōtoku Tennō, whose lover-guru, the monk Dōkyō, nearly overthrew the Throne as well.

Erotic haiku are full of allusions to the monstrous enormity of Dōkyō’s cock (while paying homage to the dignity of the Celestial Sovereign, who, lexically speaking, let nothing slip even in the heat of passion — since, at the moment of orgasmic peak, the licentious poems claim that Her Imperial Majesty would cry "We are passing away! We are passing away!" instead of "I am dying! I am dying!"). And in the category of "how to destroy a multi-millennial supremacy with my dick," Ray J is perhaps simply a gilgul (reincarnation) of the monk Dōkyō. Such is the glory of Priapus spoken of in the next verse.

9. Within is a crystal shell, shaped like an oyster — O glory of Priapus! O beatitude of the Great Goddess!

Commentary: All commentators on this verse delightedly repeat that the oyster is a symbol of the Yoni, which tends to explain why, to the traditional prohibition on eating live animals, an exception can be made for oysters. 

It also explains why we do not salt oysters, which, like women, are naturally salty, though in varying proportions. 

The best ones, as everyone knows, are invariably the saltiest. The Queen of Sheba must have been hyper-salty; Michelle Rodriguez must be hyper-hyper-salty; and I am working on my karma to reincarnate as Gina Carano’s girlfriend.

10. Therein is a pearl.

Commentary: "Pearl" in Hebrew is פְּנִינָה (peninah), gematria 195, which equals חפצי בה ("my delight is in her"), an allusion to Zion ציון (gematria 156), which is the numerical value of BABALON.

And since we are in the kingdom of Sheba, let us recall that Solomon, that supreme gynolater, says that "a valiant woman is more precious than pearls" — i.e., the alpha amazon, the badass chick, the Queen of the South is worth more than Jerusalem and Babylon combined. 

"My delight is in her" thus sounds very different, and the allusion to pearls confirms it: what you want to find in the "oyster" is a lot of salt.

So: to the mines! — Work! as Kelly Rowland said, herself quite a fine specimen of a Queen of Sheba.

11. O Pearl! thou hast come from the majesty of dread Ammon-Ra.

Commentary: The pearl sprung from the fearsome engine of divine Amon, as we know, through the intermediary of a mysterious priest, inseminated the sacred hetaira Olympias, and from there came Alexander the Great — the pearl indeed, the most prodigious being the Earth has ever borne, as I once wrote: My idols have always been people like Alexander, Napoleon, and the guy who invented the panini.

Did you know that Alexander’s Empire extended all the way to Bactria and Sogdiana, regions that sound like typos but border China?

Now, China in the 4th century BCE was in the late Zhou dynasty. If Alexander had died later and pushed further, he would have met Lao-Tzu.

This is once again the Teaching of Priapus, of Amon, of Dōkyō, of Ray J: it’s not that Lao-Tzu isn’t there — it’s that you have to push far enough and not finish too soon. 

Or: it’s not that your wife doesn’t love you — she cheats because your dick is too small and you come too fast.

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

Beautiful day to all.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 18° ♊︎ : ☽︎ in 7° ♊︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅴⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌 

Divine Tease: The Slowplay of the Gods

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

This evening, right after having adored Tum, I received a delightful letter from dear Lionel — the all-talented very handsome young man who, during the blessed years of our Abbey of Thelema (August 2019 – April 2022 e.v.), had proclaimed himself my “valet, driver, and bodyguard,” while always refusing, for his own part, to accept the Law, out of respect for the memory of his late mother, a devout Roman Catholic.

What happy memories!…

I can still see dear Lionel, during our first meeting, advising me to surround myself with security agents after he had read the daily flood of hate mail I received.

I had replied: “If one day I do take on bodyguards, I insist on two karateka dwarves — for the imagery and the personal validation: when you have just performed a Liber Reguli and, still adorned with your magical regalia, you look out the window and see two dwarves standing guard in front of the gates of your castle, you know you’re not working for an insurance company…”

He therefore took matters into his own hands and did an admirable job.

I remember how, in 2019, he physically carried me out of Campo Alegre (Le Mirage) in Curaçao — where I had just spent fifteen non-stop days of unbridled 24/7 debauchery and was no longer in any state to walk — all the way to the airport where our flight back to Paris was waiting. Not for a single second did he lose his lofty dignity or his beautiful, grave vigilance. I felt like Whitney Houston in the arms of Kevin Costner.

Among other excellent news, Lionel informs me (hold on to your hats!) that he has just engaged — he who runs away like a startled rabbit at the mere word “divination”! — in his first session of bibliomancy with the Holy Books of Thelema!

He drew verse 56 of Chapter 2 of The Book of the Heart Girt with a Serpent and asks me to explain its meaning, etc.

Normally, one is not really permitted to speak of the Mysteries to a non-Thelemite — but it goes without saying that dear Lionel is granted an exception.

So we read:

“Nay, Lord! but I am come to Thee. It is I that wait at last.” — Cordis 2, 56.

I. The Sovereign Art of Slowplay 

An interesting verse to meditate upon in prison, as well as at a poker table: the all-powerfulness of the slowplay.

Besides, outside of my ritual praxis, I too spend my time waiting for Divine Intervention.

No, of course not the decision of the Judge for the Application of Sentences — that would be rather infantile on my part — but the intervention of my divine wife Chloé. 

I know perfectly well that she is going to burst in here like Trudy Chacon, massacre most of the prison guards, and fly me out by helicopter.

I know it. So I wait.

II. Cathy’s Exasperated Verdict 

That said, to help Lionel, I called Cathy, my terrifyingly inflexible psychologist friend, and told her the whole context of the verse, pretending it was a dream I had had the night before.

“Cathy, I dreamed I was a single grape that a white Doric girl, who was languishing with her lover in the moonlight, crushed upon her tongue — and that, as a result, I was relieved of any need to seek God anymore, relieved to have nothing left to do but wait for God to find me… What does this dream mean?”

After an exasperated sigh, Cathy replied: “Well, this dream confirms what I’ve always told you, David: you’re a masochistic dilettante, a family parasite, a petty hedonist… Nothing new there…”

But I do sense that this explanation will not be enough for Lionel.

III. Listen to the Numbers & the Words 

Let us see! 

The Old Serpent of the City of Edfu, Hadit our Master, has said: “listen to the numbers & the words” (AL 2, 75).

Now “Nay,” the first word of the verse, is obviously a temurah of Ain, with a gematria value of 61.

Our august Queen Nuit has augustly said that she attributes Ain rather to the numbers 8, 80 and/or 418, as it is written: “Nothing is a secret key of this law. Sixty-one the Jews call it; I call it eight, eighty, four hundred & eighteen” (AL 1, 46).

8 is the Tangible Zero. 

80 is the value of Pé, Atu XVI of the Tarot, the “House of God.” 

418 is the Great Work accomplished.

From this we deduce:

IV. The Empty House of God

‘Lord’ is a formula meant to make apprehensible GOD, whose House is in fact Nothing: behind the Celestial Layer where Nuit and Hadit celebrate, in ecstasy, their eternal wedding night, the Ultimate Holy of Holies is entirely Empty.

In plain terms, GOD is the perpetual synchronous cosmic orgasm by which the universe is entirely recreated from zero at every nanosecond.

“Therefore unto Hadit and unto Nuit be the glory in the End and the Beginning; yea, in the End and the Beginning.” — Liber Cheth, 22.

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 11° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 19° ♏︎ : ♄︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ. 

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Exile Chic : 1217 Days in Prison and Still Shining Like a Star

An Essay in Thelemic Resilience

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

I am often asked how I manage to remain so imperturbably radiant and prodigiously cheerful amid the splendours of Exile and Detention.

Some people, I am told, would have long since succumbed to spleen and discouragement. After all — 1,217 days pacing the corridors of this prison, and I still haven’t found the bar!

Not to mention that ALL my attempts to have crates of Dom Pérignon delivered and Panamanian escorts smuggled in have lamentably failed, and that the judges politely but sepulchrally refuse to allow me even the most rudimentary basic survival equipment in my cell (an indoor zen fountain, a bevelled mirror, an electromagnetic field detector to spot ghosts, etc.).

The truth is that I am a disciple of the Old Serpent, Hadit our Master, and the Beḥedite philosophy set forth in the Second Chapter of The Book of the Law absolutely forbids any access to the blues: “They shall rejoice, our chosen: who sorroweth is not of us,” as it is written (AL II, 19).

Never forget: “Oh rejoice! rejoice!” (LLL 7, 24) — that is the whole of Thelema; everything else is merely commentary. (We have recently expanded on this.)

Regarding Hadit, Frater Y asked me in a rather introspective letter (Frater Y is increasingly writing like Lord Byron on a morning of epic hangover and crushing homesickness) what we should conclude from the difference between the way the Old Serpent, our Master, describes His physical appearance in The Book of the Law (“Blue am I and gold in the light of my bride: but the red gleam is in my eyes; & my spangles are purple & green” — AL II, 50) and in Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente (“My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible” —Cordis I, 28).

It is an excellent question.

I. Only the Beautiful Deserve Our Love 

By virtue of the Magical Theory of Signatures, the physical appearance of a being reveals absolutely everything about its inner formula and its function in the universe.

That is why the Lord of all the gods commands us to labour “for beauty’s sake and love’s” (AL III, 56). 

By naming beauty before love, He clearly enjoins us to love only the Beautiful.

(Frater N once remarked of a “hideous old Heathen of the bunny-boiler type” that “the Prophet would probably have put her under his microscope as an interesting entomological case”, but that “Leptopoecile Sophiae [our common Thelemic mentor] would, upon seeing her, have immediately thrown her down a well.”)

Thelema is the cult of Beauty, since it is the cult of the goddess Nuit, and the goddess Nuit is first and foremost “the beauteous one,” as it is written (AL I, 26).

II. My Wife Looks Like the Vampire Chick from Fright Night II (And That’s Magick) 

Beauty is Magick. 

Someone once told me that a man’s wife always physically resembles the woman who first aroused his truly frenzied transports of love when he was an adolescent.

In fact, it is indisputable: my Beloved Spouse Chloé is indeed the perfect double of Julie Carmen as Régine Dandridge in Fright Night II — minus the yellow eyes and vampire teeth, of course. There is no absolute rule, except “Do what thou wilt” (AL III, 60).

Dear friends, I had the fulminating golden youth of the typical high-born libertine; I am now an old hermit imprisoned in the mists of the Grey Land of Desolation — and I know from experience that I would have avoided ABSOLUTELY ALL the Great Misses of my life, without exception, had I always followed the Precepts set down in The Book of the Law.

Everything is there.

III. The Cruel Tutelage of Hadit: Why Your Fuck-ups Are Secretly Lessons from the Old Serpent  

But let us return to the verse: 

“My head is jewelled with twelve stars; My body is white as milk of the stars; it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible.”

The joke is that in Hebrew, the words meaning “suffering” (AGM), “captivity” (GVLH), “blood” (DM), and “horror” (ChVL) — a rather good summary of the atmosphere at Moulins-Yzeure prison — all have a gematria value of 44, whose Mystical Value is 990.

Now, 990 is 330 (the gematria of “stars”) multiplied by 3, that is, by the number of times “stars” appears in our verse.

And 330, in Hebrew, is the gematria of “restriction” (MTzR), “hurricane” (SOR), and “error” (ShL).

Since our tripartite verse is logically a description of Hadit on the three planes (spiritual, philosophical, and physical), we deduce that our sufferings, caused by our errors, are in reality different parts of the Teaching that Hadit imparts to His chosen ones, to His “stars.”

In plain terms: our spiritual, relational, and practical faults are secretly orchestrated by the Old Serpent so that the terrible readjustments they trigger may form us. 

Such is the Cruel Tutelage of Hadit.

IV. Love Nuit, Serve Ra-Hoor-Khuit, Talk Like a God 

What does this “mystical” description of the Old Serpent in the verse reveal to us, and — since we are commanded to BE Hadit (AL I, 6) — what does it order us to do?

On the plane of Thought: “My head is jewelled with twelve stars” — to have nothing but Nuit in one’s mind. Majnun-level devotion to my Queen. 

On the plane of Action: “My body is white as milk of the stars” — the body is exclusively a vehicle for transmitting the spiritual nourishment that proceeds from the gods — i.e., its sole purpose is to Promulgate the Law. Seven lives for Ra-Hoor-Khuit. 

On the plane of Speech: “it is bright with the blue of the abyss of stars invisible” — the goal of every conversation is to bring the other person to do what they will. To speak only on the frequency that connects the “Ye,” that is, the Thelemites, temporarily incarnated in Old Grey Land, who are seeking to rediscover the Earthly Paradise there, their only true homeland, the “garden of immortal kisses” (Cordis IV, 9). 

As for the divine “blue abyss,” drop everything and reread my Twelfth Night Hermeneutic.

No, seriously. Put down whatever you are doing and reread that indispensable text.

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 11° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 7° ♏︎ : ♀︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

My Only Talent Is My Cock : French Thelema Explained

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

Today, I am hyper happy, because my “fascinating and brilliantly messy” qabalistic explorations (I am to Israel Regardie what Jimmy Page is to Al Di Meola) concerning the number 220 (cf. Diamond Digger), have sparked heated doctrinal disputes within the Community on topics that are objectively as cool as:

“Would the optimal Thelemic couple actually be George Bryan Brummell and Red Sonja?… From a Thelemic point of view, would the ideal romcom really be a love story between Des Esseintes and Wonder Woman?… ”

All of this is very encouraging.

I am French, dear friends, and therefore very sensitive to the things of love.

Love has always been the law in our latitudes, and it is not very surprising that Saint François Rabelais, of blessed memory, located the Abbey of Thélème on the banks of the Loire.

What, a priori, characterizes a French Thelemite is that, being entirely devoid of any Puritan heritage, Thelema has never had, for him — born as he is in the land of Laclos and de Sade — anything truly transgressive about it.

On the contrary, Thelema offers us the opportunity to grasp and apprehend the Transcendence and Depth of our ideal of “Order and Beauty, Luxury, Calm and Voluptuousness” — but I have already recounted all of that at length in relation to my personal journey (cf. Pilgrimage to Cythera: How I Became a Thelemite Without Giving Up a Single Orgasm).

Unfortunately, my tireless old leitmotif (“My only talent is my cock,” cf. Idle Dandy in a Snow Leopard Winter), combined with my considerations on the Gnostic Saints (among whom figure the great Pan, the great Khem [Min], and the great Priapus), allowed, during the Troubles of the Year Vviii, the Inquisition of Old Grey Land to claim the opposite — that for me, Thelema was nothing but a Rasputinian “intellectual pretext” for libertinism.

Nothing could be further from the truth: I am a spiritual person, which is to say, the very opposite of an intellectual.

The man who rationalizes endlessly can neither get hard, nor laugh, nor invoke the gods: deport the intellectuals!

On the theoretical level, the foundation (if I may say so) of all Sex Magick is the following:

Beyond the psycho-affective aspect, the Qabalah attributes the Sphere of Yesod (= the sexual organs of man + his subconscious) to the Moon — that is, to the maddening and ghostly reflection, in the heart of darkness, of the light of the Sun (Sphere of Tiphareth = the heart of man + his consciousness), which itself is the contraction of the infinite Divine Light (Sphere of Kether = the fontanelle of man + his superconsciousness). 

In plain terms: a man’s libido reveals his ipseity — and therefore his divinity — under a mask.

Now, it is as in Nō theater: the more powerful the divinity, the more impressive the mask. 

Hence the axiom: to exceptional people, exceptional morals.

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 10° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 24° ♎︎ : ♃︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Oh rejoice! rejoice!

Note: I will not go so far as to ask you to listen to Mozart’s Don Giovanni while reading this text, but I would certainly see my advantage in it if, by any chance, the fancy took you to do so. — SS

Oh rejoice! rejoice! — Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli, 7:24

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

You have not, I imagine, forgotten Laura — that sublimely magnificent fusion of Ellen Ripley and Trudy Chacon who reigns within the penitentiary brigade of Moulins-Yzeure — She glides imperially along the walkways of this prison as much as through the folds of my subconscious, and she has been the subject of much discussion on this blog recently…

Laura really should have married me: she intimidates me as much as she sets me ablaze (she intimidates me ENORMOUSLY) — In her presence, I become the Ideal Male Partner, i.e. the perfect combination of a henpecked husband and a passionate lover.

Well! When I suddenly opened my eyes this morning — emerging from entirely immoral dreams — Laura was standing in my cell, right next to my bed, like the Statue of the Commandatore!

She was talking about obscure legal technicalities, but — still half in the limbo of sleep and convinced I was still dreaming — all I could hear coming from her (ravishing) ultra-determined mouth was:

Don Giovanni, a cenar teco 

m'invitasti 

e son venuto!

Oh, what a rush of adrenaline, dear friends!!!

Still wondering whether I was the victim of a punitive expedition, a hidden camera prank, or an acid flashback, I was about to stammer out quickly — in a tone of total surrender and sexy submission — something like: “What full confessions must I sign, Brigadière, for you to unfrown those brows?…” but the Stunning Apparition had already vanished from the cell before I could utter a single sound…

Like you, no doubt, I thought, as I fell back asleep, that I had been the plaything of my overstimulated erotic imagination, heated up by detention…

But no! Jonathan M. — my Sganarelle — swore to me that the cell visit had indeed taken place IRL, and that the physical body of Laura-in-uniform had authentically materialised beside my bed, like an Answered Prayer, at the exact moment of my awakening!

I do not know what I have done to deserve such a degree of benevolence from the gods, but there must be something I am doing right!

In any case, the incident filled me with joy for the entire day.

That is no small thing in the context of my current vacation…

See! The “old god,” the Serpent of the city of Edfu, Hadit our Master, has said: “if thou art truly mine — and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous,” as it is written (AL 2, 72).

Joy is the Mark — the very Symptom, one might say, by allusion to Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente 1:13-16, cf. God Is A Lethal Pathogen (But I Still Want the Kiss) — of connection to the Divine.

In the hyper-satiety of “wealth, and health, and length of days” which is the lot of the Thelemite (Tzaddi, 31) and which tends to make us a little blasé, as well as in the “danger & trouble” which are equally the lot of the Thelemite (AL 3, 11) and which tend to make us anxious, deliberately put on your happy face (as Destiny’s Child used to say) and watch over your joy.

I personally have performed the Ritual of HVD with as much joy in the Royal Penthouse Suite of the Hotel President Wilson in Geneva as I have in the disciplinary wing waiting cell of Moulins-Yzeure Prison.

This is a practical application of the essential principle of occult medicine enunciated by the divine Paracelsus, of blessed memory, according to which voluntarily assuming the Consequence necessarily aligns one with the Cause.

If joy is the physical symptom of connection to the gods — and sadness the symptom of the loss of that connection, as Hadit our Master teaches: “when ye are sad know that I have forsaken you” (AL 2, 56) — then strive, by any means necessary, to be “ever joyous” and you will automatically find yourself reconnected to the gods. Easy.

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 9° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 12° ♎︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

Diamond Digger (220 BPM)

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

To these eleven words, I have the relationship of a sugar daddy to his diamond-digger, of a moneyslave to his domme, of Heracles to Queen Omphale!

On this subject, I am asked how I manage the fact that my marvellous promulgation — by far, by very, very, very far the best currently in circulation on Earth — has earned me, “for my fee” (Cordis 1, 41), five years in prison from the Heathen and the envious hatred of virtually the entire global Thelemic community outside our Sect!

The answer is in the statement itself — precisely, in the adjective “marvellous.”

There can obviously be no more official recognition of my Work than a condemnation — for this very Work and for not having “renounced [my] spiritual practices” (as Judge Chabanon put it) — to five years of actual prison time…

For those “promulgators” tormented by the insignificance of their own attempts, who make it a point never to praise anything except what is as mediocre as they are (this is how nullity maintains itself), this is already hard to swallow…

First attracted because it shines — Sir Shumule playing with life and money, with the divine sciences and with judicial powers, with a casualness they will never possess — they quickly realise that the comparison is not exactly flattering to them…

I mean: not only are they not Zugers (miskin, though…), but every single day I publish online, with an illicit iPhone, from a prison cell saturated with signal jammers, infinitely better texts than anything all of them put together could ever imagine conceiving, even once in their lives, with all the comfort, all the freedom of action, and all the imaginable technology at their disposal!

I have a supernatural constitution. It’s genetic. But it is also deeply humiliating for them!

So please, no hard feelings: I love with a burning heart (AL 2, 24) all Thelemites in the world and I am quite aware that if I were in their place, I too would hate myself!

That said, let us joyfully add another layer:

I just had, with Tia — who has always had a soft spot both for lithotherapy and for ostentatious bling — a meticulous exchange on the respective powers of the precious stones enumerated in verse 4 of Chapter 1 of The Book of the Heart Girt with a Serpent.

“Therefore thou writest that which is of mother of emerald, and of lapis-lazuli, and of turquoise, and of alexandrite.”

At the end of our conversation, the question was not really settled — so I immediately smoked two enormous Isla OG joints in order to approach the matter methodically — and I observed the following:

I. Mother of Emerald

First, the context:

While the Prophet (blessing & worship to him) is busy recording his karmic recollections in a book, his Holy Guardian Angel, visibly pleased with him, compares what he is writing, in praise, to various precious stones…

I can understand that — I myself tend not only to regard my dear memories as so many dazzling jewels, but also to fixate obsessively, with a kind of superstitious awe, on each piece of jewellery I own, focusing on the happy events associated with its acquisition…

Thus, until very recently, the object I cherished most in this world was a Chopard Ice Cube watch given to me by a great love of my youth.

I looked after the maintenance and security of this treasure with maniacal care!!!

Yet please do me the honour of believing that, since the end of my idyll with the woman who had given it to me, I had fucked in every dialect!... I had whipped pearl-laden socialites from great Western families under the libidinous gaze of their candaulist husbands!... I had flogged penitents!... I had deflowered lolitas, fucked cocaine-fuelled night owls, Slavic escorts and hardcore tomboys!... 

But nothing had managed to diminish the intensity of the truly religious fervour I devoted to that watch and what it represented…

However, I recently realised that the Divine Injunction “Wear to me jewels” (AL 1, 63) — implying that jewels are to be worn exclusively in honour of our august Queen Nuit — together with my New Solar Year Vows (“This year, I want to reach, in relation to Nuit’s earthly representative — my wife Chloé — the state in which Majnun was in relation to Layla — to hear ‘Chloé’ in every sound and see Chloé in every occurrence”), rendered my attachment to that object completely obsolete, and my feelings towards it are now very different.

I think that as soon as I get out of prison, I will trade it for a Cartier Love bracelet in platinum, which I will give to Chloé before withdrawing to the foot of the Swiss mountain where her ancestor Nicholas of Flüe lived, and there end my life as a living embodiment of the Fool of the Tarot, grazing the grass of the fields like Majnun and Nebuchadnezzar.

Such is the power of stones!…

II. Lapis-lazuli

This kind of fetishism is perhaps the most magical — that is to say, the most Thelemic, that is to say, the healthiest — perspective a man can have on the world…

I mean: the future is a hypothesis, the present is unquantifiable — only the past exists — This is the meaning of the Word of the Old Serpent, Hadit our Master: “all is ever as it was” (AL 2, 68).

Anyone who — like Eve, Job and myself — has experienced a sudden, unmediated passage from an ultra-paradisiacal way of life to a time of particularly harsh “danger & trouble” (AL 3, 11) knows this principle: one is “strong in war” (AL 3, 28) to the exact measure of the Happiness one has stored up during the Blessèd Days: diamonds are forever.

Yes, the past is utterly immutable, and we usually lament this — But as a result, “the Kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever,” by virtue of which “it may be that yonder beggar is a King” (AL 2, 68) — Hence the fundamental Shumulism: As far as Absolute Happiness on all imaginable planes of existence is concerned, it is better to have had it for half a century than not at all — it makes for memories…

III. Turquoise

In the negative, this is the notion that Freud managed to capture on the fly, just as George Orwell did, who in 1984 bases the height of Inhumanity on the principle of the Mutability of the Past.

Understand: from a Thelemic point of view, “inhumanity” means: that which is contrary to the divine order of things; that which belongs to the agents of chaos, enemies of the gods; that which is contrary to the Law of Thelema.

In terms of the Holy Qabalah, we say: Man is the Tree of Life, which is summed up in 10 Spheres connected by 22 Paths, a Mystery logically symbolised by the Number 220 (that is, 22 × 10).

Now, 220 also symbolises “the whole of the Law” since Liber AL contains, in total, 220 Verses — 220 being therefore “the whole of the Law,” can be read as “Do what thou wilt.”

The deep Being of man — the “thou” of “Do what thou wilt” — is therefore symbolised by 220, and this is what the Prophet (blessing & worship to him) teaches us when he says “I am the Heart” (Cordis 1, 1), since Heart = H(5) + e(5) + a(1) + r(200) + t(9) = 220.

From this we deduce (with Orwell) that what is most antithetical to humanity, to the divine order of things, and to Thelema is everything that tends to reduce the individual to a peripheral role.

IV. Alexandrite

That said — being “the whole of the Law” — 220 necessarily indicates to the Thelemite how to ACT.

If we consult the Sepher Sephiroth, everything becomes clear:

. 220 is the gematria of BChIR, The Elect, designating the entire body of Thelemites. 

. 220 is the gematria of GBIRH, Heroine, Virago, Domina — the Charlie’s Angel to the thousandth power — or Buffy Summers, or Sydney Fox, etc. — the Scarlet Wonder Woman “girt with a sword” (AL 3, 11), the She-devil-with-a-sword “shameless before all men” (AL 3, 44), who is the Thelemic feminine ideal. 

. 220 is the gematria of ThHVR, Elegant, designating dandyism-as-asceticism, the Thelemic masculine ideal. 

. 220 is the gematria of NPILIM, Giants — Designating not only the Principle of the Privilege of Birth (symbolised by tallness), but also the fate of the Thelemite in this world: to be a giant among dwarves — Therefore, in both cases, the perpetual object of the envious hatred of the lower people. 

In short, 220 is the essential Thelemic identity — this is the meaning of “I am the Heart.”

Thelemites are the chosen (AL 2, 19) people (AL 2, 34), whose men are distinguished by their absolute dandyism, whose women are distinguished by their sexy badassery, and who appear to the Heathen as a race of giants — with all the idolatrous admiration and envious resentment that this simultaneously provokes in the Heathen in question.

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 8° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 0° ♎︎ : ♂︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌

God Is A Lethal Pathogen (But I Still Want the Kiss)

“Everything is poison, nothing is poison.” — Paracelsus

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

Jezebel reminded me earlier of the time when, speaking about her little nephew born at the end of June, she asked me: “What is the first piece of advice that a Cancer should receive from you?” I replied: “I don’t speak to the one who killed Bob Marley.”

In general, she has always found me too harsh with Cancer natives, but that’s mostly because, like me, she has a massive, death-level crush on Michelle Rodriguez.

Our eternal rivalry for the title of Ultimate Simp and Stan of Michelle Rodriguez is actually the very origin of our friendship!

But enough of that! Jez pointed out to me that even my recurring joke about “the aptly named sign of Cancer” is a bit much coming from a Thelemite Hierophant, since, if we are to believe the Holy Books of Thelema, God compared Himself to “a cancer that utterly corrupts the body” (Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente, 1:16).

Point for her! — But let us establish the context.

It is written:

13. Wolf's bane is not so sharp as steel; yet it pierceth the body more subtly. 

14. Even as evil kisses corrupt the blood, so do my words devour the spirit of man. 

15. I breathe, and there is infinite dis-ease in the spirit. 

16. As an acid eats into steel, as a cancer that utterly corrupts the body; so am I unto the spirit of man. 

I. Contemplate Me (Acid Love)

In plain language: The Holy Guardian Angel of the Prophet (blessing & worship to him) has successively compared the Divine Word to aconite (wolf’s bane), to a virus, to acid, and to a cancer.

It’s not exactly encouraging.

But it is true that there is always something masochistic in the Quest for the Divine — and the proof is that there is always something religious in BDSM games.

There clearly remains, in every Scarlet Woman, a little of Wanda von Dunajew…

I’m not even talking about extreme practices… I remember one night spent in a hostess bar, beside a sublime escort named Sybille, who was a living Icon of Nuit: “half-Egyptian, half-Ethiopian” (she confided to me), Sybille was a kind of Nefertiti mixed with Naomi Campbell, with, from certain angles, a touch of Kelly Rowland for that pop flavour.

After a few bottles of Dom Pérignon, she asked me what I wanted to “do,” i.e., what kink I had come to satisfy, and I answered: “To contemplate you!”

Without losing any of her hieratic composure, and without being moved in the slightest, Sybille replied: “Very well! Contemplate me! — But put some of these cushions under your knees, you’ll be more comfortable for the operation…”

II. ‘Breathe Not So Deep – Die!’

The Old Serpent of the City of Edfu, Hadit our Master, has said: “Breathe not so deep — die!”, as it is written (AL II, 68).

And one undoubtedly needs the soul of a kamikaze, or a thoroughly morbid death-wish, to undertake to draw near to a God who describes Himself as a poison, a virus, an acid, and a cancer!

It is very probably what the holy hero Herakles, Jacobus Molensis the Martyr, and Saint Giordano Bruno reflected upon on the stake… Very probably what Saint Miguel de Molinos and the Admirable Doctor told themselves every day in their cells… Perhaps it was the ultimate thought of Saint Ludovicus, King of Bavaria, at the moment he took his own life… And perhaps it is the deep meaning of the last words of Saint Roderic Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, as he lay dying, poisoned: “The Dream dissolves…”

For yes: “At the touch of the Fire Qadosh,” every illusion is eliminated, as it is written (Liber Ararita, 7:1-7). No one can claim to approach the GOD of whom it is written “Nothing shall stand before His Face” (Liber Ararita, 3:0) without passing through every stage of the process described in Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni (verses 7 to 11).

And it is NOT an appealing programme!

7. Now therefore that thou mayest achieve this ritual of the Holy Graal, do thou divest thyself of all thy goods. 

8. Thou hast wealth; give it unto them that have need thereof, yet no desire toward it. 

9. Thou hast health; slay thyself in the fervour of thine abandonment unto Our Lady. Let thy flesh hang loose upon thy bones, and thine eyes glare with thy quenchless lust unto the Infinite, with thy passion for the Unknown, for Her that is beyond Knowledge the accursed one. 

10. Thou hast love; tear thy mother from thine heart, and spit in the face of thy father. Let thy foot trample the belly of thy wife, and let the babe at her breast be the prey of dogs and vultures. 

11. For if thou dost not this with thy will, then shall We do this despite thy will. So that thou attain to the Sacrament of the Graal in the Chapel of Abominations. 

III. Cancer to Gold (Midas Poison Glow-Up)

That said, “Wolf’s bane” has a gematria of 304, which is the same as ChRVTz, Gold.

“Dis-ease” has a gematria of 145, which is that of SOVDH, a Feast.

“Acid” has a gematria of 45, which is that of AGLA (notarikon of Ateh Gibor Le-olam Adonai = “Unto Thee be the Power unto the Ages of Ages, Adonai!”)

“Cancer” has a gematria of 296, which is that of TzVR, a Rock.

Initiation consists in going back up the current of the Divine Intention, from the swamp to the pure mountain spring. 

Thus, that which is naturally a poison that contaminates and corrodes like acid, then like a cancer, becomes a Rock upon which one may rise, connecting ever more deeply to the Divine Power in order to reach the Feast of King Midas, where everything is transmuted into Gold!

IV. Sun Dies Daily (Scarabée Revenge)

The normal course of things, on the contrary, turns Gold into a pebble: whoever clings to it is inevitably destroyed BY the Divine Intention.

The mere meditation upon Liber Resh informs us about this Intention:

Behold the stages of the Sun’s daily course! — The Child (Heru-ra-ha) becomes, after a fleeting period of pleasure (Ahathoor), a solitary old man (Tum) and ends in the tomb, with the insects (Kephra).

Conversely, the Thelemite who, in his Praxis, is patient and laborious like the Beetle (Kephra), pierces the uncanny twilight (Tum) of the Mysteries and, through constant “love under will” (Ahathoor), becomes once again the Child-Sun (Heru-ra-ha).

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 7° ♉︎ : ☽︎ in 17° ♍︎ : ☽︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰⅰ.

𓄿𓎛𓂧 𓇋𓈖𓏌