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| Atu IX, The Hermit, Thoth Tarot |
To Saint Louis II of Bavaria and to Saint Wolfgang von Goethe.
To Francis I, "the Insatiable Bull," and to Louis XIV, "the Sun King."
To Cardinals Dubois and de Richelieu.
To François-René de Chateaubriand and to Antonin Artaud.
To Stu Ungar.
To Karl Lagerfeld.
To Milo Manara.
To Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse, and Queen Beyoncé Knowles.
And above all, of course, to Charlie Sheen.
Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,
To Cardinals Dubois and de Richelieu.
To François-René de Chateaubriand and to Antonin Artaud.
To Stu Ungar.
To Karl Lagerfeld.
To Milo Manara.
To Michael Jackson, Freddie Mercury, Amy Winehouse, and Queen Beyoncé Knowles.
And above all, of course, to Charlie Sheen.
Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
It is the 13th day of the Thelemic Holy Season, during which we traditionally meditate on the Qabalistic Mystery of the Path of Iod, that is, the IXth Tarot Trump, attributed to the zodiac sign of Virgo and called “The Hermit.”
And indeed, we observe on this card a genuine old-school hermit—a sort of Nicholas of Flüe (which was a direct ancestor, did you know, of the Great Royal Spouse Hypatia-Chloé, and thus of my beloved children, HIH Prince Aleister and HIH Princess Clothilde, may the gods grant them a good and long life), a sort, I say, of Nicholas of Flüe coming face-to-face, in the middle of a wheat field, with the nāḥāš Hadit, our Master, great god of the cities of Behedet, Damanhour in the Delta, and Edfu in Upper Egypt!
This brings to mind the memory of a grand gathering, held in the spring of 2018 e.v. by an old friend of mine who was celebrating the conclusion of a sale of fake antiques to some oil-rich fool.
An insufferable ultra-snob had cornered me, declared that he had just read the Book of the Law, and asked with a glint of unsettling strangeness (unheimliche) in his eyes: “Sir, WHO is Hadit?…”
I had casually replied: “Well, if we base ourselves solely on the Discourse of this god, recorded in the Second Chapter of the Book—outside of any doctrinal or ideological framework—then the nāḥāš Hadit, our Master, is a sort of sadomasochistic Cheshire Cat who loves athletic women, ostentatious luxury, and sadistic violence—well… a Cheshire Cat who would be a serpent…”
Now, the specific peculiarity of Thelema is that the first Commandment of our Law (AL 1, 6) enjoins us not to worship Hadit, but to be Hadit.
That’s why I only believe in someone’s Thelemism if they end up incarcerated at the Moulins-Yzeure Detention Center, charged with Incitement to Drug Use and Exploitation of Vulnerable Persons in a State of Psychological Weakness.
From all this, we deduce, of course, that the IXth Tarot Trump shows the nāḥāš Hadit, our Master, at the very moment when he’s posing to Nicholas of Flüe the question that Sir Aleister Crowley (may his merits protect us) asserts, in his Confessions, is the only one of any interest: “WHO ART THOU?”
And indeed, “Who am I?” was the first question that the priest of the princes, Ankh-af-na-khonsu (blessing and worship to him), asked our august Queen, the beauteous goddess Nuit, when he was admitted into her august presence, as it is written (AL 1, 26).
And it’s a difficult question.
In my case, perhaps a bit particular, I would answer that what characterizes me first and foremost is what my friend Guy de la H. calls “the surreal aura conferred upon [me] by the Babylonian incest of [my] personal genealogy” (as none of my old gangsta readers are unaware, Mom was also my great-aunt. No, seriously.)
In my youth, I was generally defined as a “spoiled rich kid with maximum alcoholic heredity and a suspicious level of inbreeding.”
Since then, I’ve led the life of a dandy adventurer, involving a multitude of stamps in my passport, fleeting liaisons, bloody brawls, and sobering-up cells. You’d need three lifetimes to even approach the number of rumors about me.
I’ve also witnessed a heap of strange things, in nearly every circle where the arts of mysticism and magic are practiced—things at the sight of which a bourgeois, a skeptic, or a materialist would instantly take refuge in the certainty that they were suffering from mental alienation.
Me, a simple idling nobleman, it never occurred to me to doubt my senses—the result: I’ve been able to build myself up while marveling.
A pure product of Old France, that is, a well-groomed young man who learned early that children don’t speak at the table, I’ve rubbed shoulders with more thieves and murderers than if I’d been born a social case, and shared the bed of more women than if I’d become a porn star—a vocation that my family’s prudishness thwarted at the last moment.
I’ve traveled a lot. Religious, philosophical, or political convictions are worthless unless validated by direct experience—not to mention that, when it comes to women, I love to deliver abroad.
But I feel myself becoming sedentary—For a truly contemplative man, isn’t it enough to occasionally rearrange his cushions?
“But Sir,” you’ll ask, “what are you seeking in the end?!”
“Friend, I’ve already answered that—I said: ‘I’m just looking for an angel with mismatched eyes,’ and everyone thought I was on psilocybin.”
Mind you, I was on psilocybin.
But that doesn’t mean I was wrong.
Meditating on this, go forth, dear friends, under the protection of that spiritual sphere whose center is everywhere and circumference nowhere, which we call GOD.
Warm kisses from the Bahamas.
Love is the law, love under will.
— ☉︎ in 11° ♈︎ : ☽︎ in 23° ♉︎ : ♂︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.
