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
