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.

Hetaera

Atu XI, Lust, Thoth Tarot

The goddess Babalon is, according to the Gnostic Creed, the mother of all men. Yet, the goddess Babalon is, by her own admission, a prostitute. Each of us is therefore, consequently, both a god and an SOB. – Sir Shumule 

Women, machines of immodesty, are born for immodesty, and those who refuse it are made only to languish in contempt. – Marquis de Sade (quoted by Sir Shumule in commentary on AL 3, 55: < let all chaste women be utterly despised among you >) 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 11th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Teth, that is, the XIth Tarot card, attributed to the zodiac sign of Leo and called “Lust.” 

I recall, on this subject, that one of my female readers — an unrepentant fashionista type, yet passionate about literature — once asked me: "Sir, you write fabulously well – where did you get that style?" 

I replied: "It was long ago, dear friend… I must have been four years old… The governess who taught me to write had an enormous bosom. Every time I traced my letters correctly, she praised me effusively, tenderly pressing me against her. My young mind made the connection: If I write well, I get to touch big boobs. There you have it." 

Oh! Seven times blessed, terrifying, and sublime feminine energy! That of Atu XI, that of Babalon! 

In truth, this goddess — whom the Heathen call "Nature," hoping to turn her into Something instead of Someone so they can tame her — the goddess Babalon, I say, reigns supreme over the things of this world. 

Only that which amuses, serves, or delights the Scarlet Woman succeeds here below — and that which amuses, serves, or delights the Scarlet Woman unfailingly succeeds. 

[Would you like a bit of Holy Qabalah? I recently realized that the word Lust, the title of Atu XI of the Tarot, on which Babalon is depicted, is said in Hebrew as אתרוג (etrog), with a numerical value of 610, which is the same as the English word There, recurring in the Book of the Law — And it is written < There is success > (AL 3, 69), which we can thus read as: "Atu XI = success"!] 

Each of your failures, dear Friends, has come from your ignorance of the planet in the hands of an arch-maximalist version of Kim Kardashian, appointed Global Dictatrix — commanding, on the magical plane, all the forces of Matter — invested, on the political plane, with full autocratic powers over all the Nations of the world — freely disposing, as an individual, of all the wealth circulating on Earth — perpetually drunk, perpetually lustful, perpetually in PMS — and assured, as far as her person is concerned, of absolute impunity… 

Now, everything becomes clear! — and the tsunami that kills hundreds of thousands of innocent people is much more amusing when viewed from this angle :) 

Babalon preaches the freedom of passions — She knows no taboos, and even less so crimes… 

Question: But what becomes of Morality, Goodness, and Democratic Values with a goddess like that?!? 

Answer: Morality, Goodness, and Democratic Values are for the people — And we, Thelemites, are against the people (AL 2, 25) — Babalon, for her part, is a courtesan: she calls Pimps, Gigolos, and Johns what we name Initiates, Heroes, and ordinary People (or, in Thelemic terms: Hermits, Lovers, and Men of Earth (cf. AL 1, 40)) — meaning she is of an extreme, outrageous, obscene elitism — downright pornographic, even (the Heathen clumsily tried to grasp this Mystery by creating the concept of "natural selection"). 

Moreover, being (thus) a courtesan — and by courtesan, I mean: high-flying hetaera — Babalon is necessarily young, hot, and cunning (if the Divine Marquis had made the heroine of Juliette, specifically Babalonian, an old, ugly, stupid, and repulsive woman, the work would hold no interest whatsoever) — she is a concentrate of privileges. 

I tried, during my appearance before the Riom Court of Appeal, to explain this by quoting Machiavelli: "It is better to be impetuous than circumspect, for nature is a woman who can only be overcome by tormenting her."

– "So," asked President Vignon, "you admit to tormenting women?" 

– "Not at all," I replied, "I only torment those I wish to overcome: the beautiful, the charming, the interesting — I swear to you that the ugly, unpleasant, and boring ones have nothing to fear from me!" 

He told me I should "be ashamed" (sic). 

The goddess Babalon, our Mother to all — or, more precisely, our MILF to all — teaches in essence: We are on Earth to enjoy life — everything else is either trying to sell you something or the attempt of a diseased organism to contaminate healthy ones. 

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.

 

Goddess Babalon

—☉︎ in 9° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 23° ♈︎ : ☉︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Gigayacht

Atu XII, The Hanged Man, Thoth Tarot

The Christian sees life as a vast ocean of darkness and despair. The Thelemite charters a zillionaire’s gigayacht.

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

It is the 10th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Mem, that is, the XIIth Tarot card, attributed to the planet Neptune and called “The Hanged Man.” 

In divination, this card heralds Misfortune, in the least funky sense of the term, and, symbolically, sums up incarnate existence as a kind of endless and calamitous sea voyage, quite comparable to the one endured by the holy king of Ithaca, Odysseus of a thousand wiles (may his merits protect us). 

Ah! < the awful Sea >, as it is written in our Holy Books (Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente 3, 44).

You are not unaware that, in the Jungian “Totem Test,” the question by which the psychologist prompts the patient to reveal their vision of Life is: “What does the high sea evoke for you?” 

When Cathy, my uncompromising psychoanalyst friend— the very archetype of frigid beauty— once subjected me to this Test, I knew nothing of its significance. And to the question: “What does the high sea evoke for you?” I replied: “When a friend invited me to go cruising in Indonesia on his boat—we fished for sharks, we had a great laugh…” 

Then, seeing the dismayed look on my interlocutor’s face, I quickly added: “Alright, let’s say: me, in a deckchair, on the deck of a zillionaire’s gigayacht, right hand in the champagne cooler, left hand on Rihanna’s backside.”

Indeed, for someone who was sentenced to five years in prison for their philosophical and religious beliefs, I worry astonishingly little about the concept of Adversity… 

It’s true that, religiously, I am devoted to the gods of Thelema—that, philosophically, I am a disciple of the Gnostic Saints—and that, in practice, my unwavering code of conduct is, in all circumstances: There are two rules for living happily: the first is to give no importance to minor worries; the second is that all worries are minor. 

In short: Our gods are cooler than yours, and they are my playmates on this beautiful and interesting planet. 

Generally speaking, all my actions are for our august lady, the beauteous goddess Nuit—“Hail the Space Queen,” as our friend Corentin says—and my personal religion boils down to this: once I understood that life is a courtly love affair between me and a Cleopatra raised to the power of a thousand, everything became clear—I feel far more akin to a Beyoncé, Britney Spears, or Selena Gomez fan in their devotion to their “queen” than to 99.9999% of the global occult community. 

When Misfortune strikes me, it’s because Nuit is in Gal Gadot-as-the-Evil-Queen mode, the Hunter has upset her, and I’m the one taking the fall for it—When Happiness comes my way, it’s because she’s in Nefertiti mode, pleased with my service, and has ordered me to be showered with gold—In both cases, it’s super sexy! 

Did you know that, in ancient Israel, they used to give the condemned, just before putting them to death (following King Solomon’s recommendation: “Give strong liquors to the one who is perishing, and wine to those in bitter distress; let them drink and forget their poverty and remember their misery no more” (Proverbs 31:6-7)), a cup of very strong wine mixed with a strange herb like datura?—We can logically deduce that the condemned would depart like a barfly thinking they were a witch flying off on a broomstick. And that carrying out the execution after that was pure cruelty: the poor soul was already punished enough by having to drink Near Eastern wine! 

If I were to perish on the scaffold, a Château Latour 1st Grand Cru Classé 1945 would do, and replace the datura with some robust gaperon. 

Of course, that wouldn’t be enough to intoxicate a drunkard of my caliber to the point of forgetting that Macron rejected my plea for clemency—which isn’t very nice after all the good I’ve said about his wife—It’d probably take following Solomon’s injunction of strong liquors, and while an Adios Motherfucker cocktail seems fitting under the circumstances, I’d probably opt for a Looping-Papaye instead, thanks to its marvelous quality of intoxication that would—here we go again—make me feel like I’m heading to the guillotine on a yacht.

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

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 8° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 8° ♈︎ : ♄︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Epectasy

Atu XIII, Death, Thoth Tarot

Sardanapalus, son of Anakyndaraxes, built Anchialus and Tarsus in a single day; stranger, eat, drink, and make love, for all else is vanity. — Epitaph of King Sardanapalus  

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

Today is the 9th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Nun—that is, the 13th Tarot card, attributed to the zodiacal sign of Scorpio and called "Death." 

Now that’s a catchy topic! 

My dear friend Prudence—who looks like a customized absinthe leaf when she’s in shrew mode—my dear friend Prudence, I say, queen of the "Proust Questionnaire," tells me that no matter how witty the people she subjects to this Questionnaire are, they always show signs of unease when faced with the question: "How would you like to die?" 

 

"Generally," she says, "the subject escapes with a nervous laugh, a quip, or a platitude, all while squirming… Funny…" 

Don’t you find it odd that meditating on death is so disagreeable to us, even though our final passing is the only absolute certainty we have down here? (Which is why I never turn down an adventure, no matter how risky… I’m not afraid it’ll end badly since, either way, we all end badly…) 

I can’t take "the Grim Reaper" seriously… To me, she has nothing of the Thirteenth Tarot Card: she’s not eerie—nor swamp-like—nor a badly dressed skeleton lugging around farming tools—In our religion, death is a party (AL 2, 41), and trust me, my funeral will be a hip, chic, and vogue affair. 

The only thing that fascinates me about famous deaths is their "last words." 

I suspect some of them wrote their final words in advance… so I set out to craft my own—but to no avail: I’m so unmorbid that inspiration has abandoned me… I considered the cheesy pun "I’m just passing through," but I was told it’s already taken… not to mention that a "last word" requires a bourgeois, cozy death… It’s harder to grab your entourage’s attention during a plane crash… at best, I might whisper to the flight attendant as the plane plummets: "You must really regret not giving in to my advances earlier…" 

Camus said that, of all philosophical questions, suicide was the only one that held any interest—and it’s quite irritating to think that Camus, from his final resting place, might find what I write uninteresting, even though, in this case, it’s also what I think of his work—Anyway, it’s Scorpio Day: let’s talk suicide. 

It won’t be easy. I might be the least funereal person alive—but still, life is mortal, and I don’t want to run into Camus in the afterlife without being able to say: "So, Albert?... With your chauffeur’s name… Huh?... And now?... Not calmed down?..."

The scorpion is the only animal that kills itself when surrounded by flames—a rather beautiful lesson, which essentially says: suicide is always admirable because it means remaining, against all odds, the master of one’s fate. 

Personally, I find life far too marvelous to consider ending it—but I claim I’d rather be crushed by a Rolls than a thirty-eight-ton truck, and I have no objections to the dandyism of certain suicides—Perhaps, in the end, those Hollywood actresses who killed themselves to never age achieved the highest form of voluntary death… Either way, in our religion, life is a party too, and the thing about parties is they don’t last—reason enough not to rush the exit. 

The last time someone asked me, "How would you like to die?" I replied: I want to die of epectasy (as we call in France a sudden heart attack at the moment of orgasm)—Or die of old age at 120, tenderly cared for by my loved ones—Or die of epectasy at 120 because one of my loved ones cared for me a bit too tenderly.  

Broadly speaking, understand qabalistically where the conflict lies: 

When facing a serial killer eager to add you to his tally, your Nephesh (the animal part of your soul) cries, "Mercy, no, don’t kill me just yet!" while your Ruach (the psycho-affective part of your soul) says, "Go ahead, old man, this farce of an existence has dragged on too long…" But all the while, your Neshamah (the divine part of your soul) keeps repeating: "Life is a river of ambrosia that one sails down in a nacre boat." (cf. Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente 1, 39). 

That’s the whole tragedy—funky, punchy, sexy, but a tragedy nonetheless—of the human condition. 

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 7° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 23° ♓︎ : ♀︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Fantasmatic Work

Atu XIV, Art, Thoth Tarot

« Every woman should have a Man like Sir Shumule at home and at her service. He should be placed in a glass cage, taken out for her intellectual and erotic needs, to satisfy both the high and the low, and then locked up again. SS has a fantasmatic work to accomplish. » — Emma La Luce 

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

Today is the 8th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, on which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Samekh, that is, the XIVth Tarot card, titled Art and attributed to the zodiac sign of Sagittarius — though I’ve never quite managed to decide whether my favorite Sagittarius is Britney Spears or Lucky Luciano. 

The story of my life!… 

Let’s talk about Art, then. 

I recall addressing the question “What is Art?” for the benefit of a high school student’s exam revisions—a cheerful, slacker-ish, ultra-privileged kid from an upper-upper-class family, and thus utterly likable. 

Here’s the explanation I gave him, prefaced with the following advice:

Make the most of high school to stock up on good memories!… Life is long… And you only really laugh willingly in high school, or at the sight of an old lady slipping on a patch of ice and sprawling in the street with all her packages… in both cases, enjoy it while it lasts!… it doesn’t last long!... 

On Art

I just received the following request:

“My Philosophy revisions for the Baccalaureate are currently focused on the theme of Art. How would Sir Shumule define Art?” 

Easy. I’d stick to the definition of the Ancients: ‘Anything that has nothing to do with Survival or Procreation is Art’.

Example: Imagine that, in the height of lust and desire, I find myself on a clear spring morning on the Garigliano Bridge, trying to chase down an exceptionally sexy but exceptionally fast young girl, hoping to force her to satisfy my lechery. 

As athletic and breathless as this chase scene may be, it clearly stems solely from the instinct of Procreation. 

But then, just as I think I’m about to catch my frightened prey, a Malian refugee nicknamed Daddy Cool bursts forth, charging toward me at the speed of an Usain Bolt launched with a steady hand! 

Built like two Mike Tysons, Daddy Cool is on a quest for the heroic act that would allow him to regularize his administrative status in France – He shouts at me: “Leave that young lady alone!!!” as he barrels straight toward me. 

Daddy Cool’s sheer size instantly switches my brain into Survival mode: I subtly perform a graceful little sidestep (a rather inglorious maneuver known in sumo as the henka), and the unfortunate Malian, carried by his momentum, flies over the bridge’s railing: an eighteen-meter free fall headfirst into the Seine, where he plunges and disappears… 

As choreographically flawless as my move may have been, it was inspired only by Survival. 

I then lean over the edge of the bridge, toward the exact spot where Daddy Cool sank, and give him a majestic middle finger. 

That middle finger is Art: a pure act of passion, useless, driven by what Kandinsky calls “Inner Necessity,” yet carrying a strong emotional charge and a multitude of messages condensed into a single Symbol. 

— Sir Shumule 

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 6° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 8° ♓︎ : ♃︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Dirty Job

Atu XV, The Devil, Thoth Tarot

Being Saint-Exupéry's Little Prince disguised as Ming the Merciless is a dirty job, but someone has to do it. — Sir Shumule

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people, 

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

I just awoke from a very passionate dream featuring Jennifer Lopez, and the physiological aftereffects it left me with remind me that today we are meditating on the Mystery of the Path of Ayin—that is, the XVth and very ithyphallic Tarot card.

Indeed, I have already alluded, in my writings, to "the state of monstrous, turgid, and threatening erection in which I always find myself upon waking."

For example, I just rediscovered, in my Diary from February 2010 e.v.—yes, indeed!… I am so retrograde and narcissistic that I take pleasure in perpetually rereading my own writings about my own past… Behold, the Eternal Return! I adore this exercise, which (as masturbatory as it may seem) offers (like masturbation) the chance to reconnect whenever I please with happy memories—I rediscovered, I say, the following entry: 

I hate waking up alone, with a monstrous, useless erection. L*** has, alas, returned to Ibiza, and my rekindled fling with an ex, then re-ex, then re-re-ex, and now married, fizzled out: I didn’t know her husband had access to her voicemail, and he must have been a bit surprised to hear me sighing into it: “I can’t take it anymore, when is he leaving? Oh, your ass, your breasts, etc.” 

I was so unserious back then…

Dear friends, the holy reading for this Wednesday, the 1087th day of our Exile, is Liber LXV: Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figurâ אדני, Chapter 4, verses 2 to 5. 

2. Even as on the resounding wind-swept heights of Mitylene some god-like woman casts aside the lyre, and with her locks aflame as an aureole, plunges into the wet heart of the creation, so I, O Lord my God! 

Commentary: This verse is generally considered an allusion to Sappho, and that doesn’t bother me: I’m in favor of same-sex marriage as long as both girls are hot. 

3. There is a beauty unspeakable in this heart of corruption, where the flowers are aflame. 

Commentary: Let us also strive to wrap our internal corruptibility in a certain formal beauty.

It always reminds me of that very beautiful, very elegant, very Bordeaux-born young woman I once dated, after approaching her at an ultra-posh party with the line, “Girl, you’ve got an ass that could wake the dead!” 

I can still see her insisting, later, when introducing me to her parents, that when they asked, “How did you meet?” I stick to talking about love at first sight! 

Those were the good old days! :) 

4. Ah me! but the thirst of Thy joy parches up this throat, so that I cannot sing. 

Commentary: Did you know that in ancient Western European lore, the name Pantagruel— which Saint François Rabelais (may his merits protect us) gives to his depiction of the ideal Thelemite—was the name of the demon of Thirst? 

5. I will make me a little boat of my tongue, and explore the unknown rivers. It may be that the everlasting salt may turn to sweetness, and that my life may be no longer athirst. 

Commentary: If you had drawn this verse in a bibliomantic context and asked old Chioa Khan for an interpretation, I would have told you this: 

Thirst is a reminder of our mission to transfigure reality. 

A glass of pure, clear, ice-cold mineral water can thus, even for a drunkard of my caliber, become, in hot weather, an ecstatic nectar, to be savored and enjoyed with as much care as a great vintage. 

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

Warm kisses from the Bahamas.

Love is the law, love under will.

— ☉︎ in 6° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 24° ♒︎ : ☿︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.

Excuse My French

Only the sexiest caterpillars become dryocampa rubicunda.

Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,

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

I’ve just received, from Soror K., an injunction to publish only in English from now on, and I am outraged!

But what can I do about it?… — No matter how much I protest non-stop: “Come on, Sis!… The British!… Their English chic is ridiculous, their royal family grotesque, they’re all gay, whereas we French invented literature!”, she won’t budge…

A Californian by origin, Soror K. says she “can’t take it anymore” deciphering my “aristocrat-on-acid” prose and argues that, anyway, “English is the liturgical language of Thelema,” while the French I practice is “at best, a language as dead as Pictish!”

She may have a point, though…

So I’ll publish in English until further notice, and since Soror K. also has Armenian roots, I think I’m getting off lightly — especially since you can always read this post as if it’s speaking English with a French accent, which is super sexy.

Dear friends, the Holy Reading for this Tuesday, the 1086th day of our Exile, is Liber LXV : Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente sub figurâ אדני, chapter 3, verses 63 to 65, and chapter 4, verse 1,

63. They that ever desired Thee shall obtain Thee, even at the End of their Desire.

Commentary : I can’t get used to the “radiant future,” “tomorrow will sing,” almost communist tone of this verse…

I mean: it’s with a “The Hare and the Tortoise” philosophy like this that the plebs have been reduced to slavery for centuries…

And, in fact, it’s precisely because of this mass psychology that I hate the people, the peoples: they have no other way of expressing themselves than by banding together because they have no soul, no spirit, no feeling — they only have a collective soul, and they need collective amusements, collective hatreds — of class or nation.

I believe, — since we’re talking ex-communism, — that to hate the people, all you need is to have traveled in Eastern Europe and seen how much their current rock festivals resemble their harvest festivals from the ‘50s: those people only have fun when there are ten thousand of them in a field.

64. Glorious, glorious, glorious art Thou, O my lover supernal, O Self of myself.

Commentary : I deeply love the Sacred Eroticism that emanates from this verse.

Don’t forget that my Damascus road in this life was the word of Sir Aleister Crowley: make your self-indulgence your religion — by the power of which, my joyfully orgiastic lifestyle as a womanizing, drinking, gourmet, gambling dandy, — a friend of voluptuous pleasures in general against a backdrop of outrageous luxury, — became a religious duty. 

65. For I have found Thee alike in the Me and the Thee; there is no difference, O my beautiful, my desirable One! In the One and the Many have I found Thee; yea, I have found Thee.

Commentary : Back when the priest of the princes, Ankh-af-na-khonsu (blessing and worship to him), lived on Earth, the priests of Egypt called GOD “the One who became millions.”

Indeed, the only true heresy is to make a difference between monotheism, polytheism, and pantheism.

Chapter 4

1. O crystal heart! I the Serpent clasp Thee; I drive home mine head into the central core of Thee, O God my beloved.

Commentary :  I always feel a slight melancholy — a Japanese mono-no-aware tinged with autumnal nostalgia — whenever a Chapter of the Holy Books ends and another begins.

It’s my crystal heart side — not to mention that this verse is downright unsettling…

So, if you had drawn it in a bibliomantic context and asked old Chioa Khan for an interpretation, I would have answered with this fundamental shumulism:

The crucial moments of existence are like pit bulls: they can sense it if you’re afraid.

So, 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 5° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 10° ♒︎ : ♂︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.