Don’t take all this too seriously. If I were truly the most powerful of Magicians, half of you would already be transformed into girls and the other half into bottles of Dom Pérignon. — Sir ShumuleI wish to be reborn seven times in this life of mine, to ridicule even more enemies of Ra-hoor-khuit. — Sir ShumuleWhenever you go out, we pick up the party where we left off. — Soror Jezebel, Letter to Sir Shumule, August 2024 e.v.
Dear friends, beautiful and happy people,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The friendly jest about the Romani people slipped into my previous post (“All that’s missing is a soundtrack of plaintive gypsy violins to complete the scene, and it’s not like there’s a shortage of Gypsies in this prison!”) has earned me accusations of (I quote) “outdated problematic stereotypes, in contradiction with the universalism of Thelema.”
By the Holy Stèle!
To accuse me of hostility toward the Romani community!
Me, who hit puberty watching Julia Migenes in the role of Carmen and who considers Aleister Crowley’s La Gitana to be the most beautiful poem ever written in the English language!
Not to mention that the music video for Shakira’s Gypsy never fails to incredibly stir my senses (though one might prefer Can’t Remember to Forget You…).
Personally, I have only fond memories of the encounters I’ve had with the Romani community in this life…
For example, I recall the Autumn of 2013 e.v.:
A very good friend, a great aesthete and collector, had left me the keys to his villa in Grasse, which I occupied alone for a couple of weeks.
The day before his return, as I was reading the Letters of Baron von Pollnitz over lunch, there were repeated rings at the gate…
I checked the surveillance screen and was quite surprised to see Julia Migenes Johnson in her Carmen costume…
I mean: a perfect lookalike, but for real, and barely in her twenties: ultra-Romani, ultra-attractive, ultra-obviously hot…
I went to open the gate and noticed it was even more striking in person than on the screen…
So, she told me she was selling I don’t know what, that her family did chair re-caning, etc. – Did I, by chance, have any chairs to restore? – “Plenty!” I exclaimed on a whim. – Could she see them to give me an estimate? – “Of course! Please, come in!”
I knew full well (this old trick) that she was likely scoping out the place for a future burglary, and that my unfortunate friend could already say goodbye to his Regency furniture, his precious knick-knacks, and his master paintings!…
Especially since, quickly achieving my aim, I spent the entire afternoon passionately making love to my bohemian girl in the owner’s bedroom (which I claimed as my own), where the most valuable items were kept…
What delight!…
Aleister Crowley, who had two thousand lovers, wrote his most beautiful poem (and the most beautiful poem in the English language of all time, as Kanye would say) to celebrate one night spent with a certain gitana…
Mine was so fiery that she left me needing two physiotherapy sessions, roller-derby-girl-level bruises, and a month on Fungizone… what a beautiful adventure…
Alas! Barely recovered from a final orgasm (which, by the way, I mistook for the onset of a stroke), I heard my visitor say that we were now “promised,” and that her entire family would come to settle in “my” big house…
She added, in a dark and far-from-reassuring tone, that her brothers and cousins “wouldn’t understand if [I] didn’t take [her] in” after everything I’d done to her that afternoon…
How did I get out of it?
In the simplest way possible!… The flood of endorphins gave me a cherubic, innocent look… I murmured sweetly: “Of course, my darling: call them to come for dinner, I’ll go do the shopping for the party – meat or fish? – make yourself at home…” – and I slipped away without a second thought…
Naturally, I haven’t tried to contact my host since, so I’ve never learned the end of the story…
Much later, when I recounted these events to my cousin Abigail (who lives on Summit Drive, at the bottom of the hill), she exclaimed:
“De-plor-able! For a fan of Can’t Remember to Forget You, you’re not very ska!… You’re not ska at all!!!”
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 17° ♋︎ : ♃︎ : Ⅴⅹⅰ.
