Oulipo and The Creativity of Limitation

Liminal Poem for Martin Gardner, 1981. Harry Matthews.

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Louis Boero April 3, 2025

There is no such thing as inspiration, only constraint. This is the maxim, conjured in Paris’s mid-century cafe culture, that launch the most radical literary movement of the 20th century. Oulipo, short for Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, or "School of Potential Literature," is a literary movement founded in 1960 by mathematician François Le Lionnais and writer Raymond Queneau. At its core is the belief that constraints in writing are not limitations but opportunities, a way to unlock new creative possibilities. Unlike movements that emphasize raw inspiration or spontaneity, Oulipo treats literature as a structured process, where self-imposed rules and formal techniques shape and expand the act of storytelling.

The origins lie in the intersection of literature and mathematics. Le Lionnais and Queneau, both fascinated by patterns, sought to explore how structures could guide artistic creation. Their clearest historical touchstone was the sonnet; constrained by a rigid structure that required 14 lines of iambic pentameter, a rhyme scheme of three quatrains and a couplet, and a narrative turn in the 8th or 9th line, of all formats the sonnet allows its writer the least freedom. And yet, Queneau thought, it has produced an outsized percentage of the most writing in history. Writing, Queneau saw, has long been a process of limitation, it simply had not been explicitly about this. They were not rejecting the past but in discovering hidden formulas within it, reviving forgotten constraints, and inventing new ones. They saw themselves as "rats who build the labyrinth from which they will try to escape”. Literature, for Queneau and Le Lionnais, was not a wild stream to be navigated instinctually but a puzzle, a game, an equation whose unknown variables the writer must solve.

As the group developed, members created increasingly complicated, difficult and absurd constraints, with each producing, if not always successful, increasingly interesting results. One of the best-known Oulipian techniques is the lipogram, a text that avoids a particular letter. Georges Perec, one of the group’s most famous members, wrote La Disparition (A Void), a full-length novel that never uses the letter "e." The omission, far from being a gimmick, becomes thematically significant - the book is a mystery novel, with a detective searching for something missing that he can never find.

Another hallmark of Oulipo is explorative variation, where the constraint is found in subject and total freedom is granted in the language to describe the prescribes subject. This style of writing is exemplified in Queneau’s Exercises in Style. In this work, a simple anecdote about a man on a bus is retold in ninety-nine different ways, demonstrating the endless flexibility of language. The idea that style, tone, and form can radically reshape meaning is central to the Oulipian philosophy. Their constraints are not rigid rules but tools that force the writer to think differently, much like how a poet working within the sonnet form must find creative ways to express an idea within its strict structure.

Beyond individual techniques, Oulipo explores broader mathematical and algorithmic structures. Members have experimented with palindromes, sestinas, Fibonacci sequences, and even invented new poetic forms, such as the “snowball,” where each line grows by one letter at a time. Italo Calvino, another key figure and the writer who broke through to the widest audience, his shadow looming larger than the whole group, integrated Oulipian ideas into his novels, particularly If on a winter’s night a traveler, a work that constantly reframes its own narrative, shifting expectations with each chapter.

Though Oulipo began as a small group of French writers, its influence has spread widely. Digital literature, algorithmic poetry, and interactive fiction all owe a debt to its principles. The concept of constrained writing has found a home in computer-generated texts and artificial intelligence-assisted storytelling, where structured limitations guide unpredictable results.

Unlike other literary movements, Oulipo does not operate through manifestos or ideological declarations. It is not a rejection of tradition but an ongoing investigation into the mechanics of language. Writers working within its framework see constraints as a means of expanding expression rather than narrowing it. The beauty of Oulipo is that it offers an open invitation to any writer willing to experiment. Try writing a story where no word contains the letter "a." Rewrite a passage in a hundred different styles. Construct a poem where each line follows a mathematical sequence. The rules may seem restrictive at first, but within them lies a paradox: the more you limit yourself, the more your creativity grows.

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Louis Boero is a writer and critic.

Some Thoughts on the Common Toad

Schnieder’s Toad. Iconographia Zoologica, c.1881.

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First published in Tribune, in April of 1946, just one year after the end of the Second World War, George Orwell’s thoughts on the humble toad become an ode to nature, and the enduring beauty of the world in times of hardship. As with almost all of the great English writer’s works, this essay is concerned with ideas of class inequalities within society. Adamantly opposed throughout his life to all forms of totalitarianism, both on the right and left of politics, he was an ardent democratic socialist whose writing was his form of activism. ‘Some Thoughts on the Common Toad’ has Orwell’s mastery of prose on full display, elegantly singing the praises of the amphibian, heralding the joys of spring, and reminding the reader that the lifeblood of existence is in the natural world, and we are more a part of it than the powers that be may want us to believe.

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George Orwell, April 1, 2025

Before the swallow, before the daffodil, and not much later than the snowdrop, the common toad salutes the coming of spring after his own fashion, which is to emerge from a hole in the ground, where he has lain buried since the previous autumn, and crawl as rapidly as possible towards the nearest suitable patch of water. Something – some kind of shudder in the earth, or perhaps merely a rise of a few degrees in the temperature – has told him that it is time to wake up: though a few toads appear to sleep the clock round and miss out a year from time to time – at any rate, I have more than once dug them up, alive and apparently well, in the middle of the summer.

At this period, after his long fast, the toad has a very spiritual look, like a strict Anglo-Catholic towards the end of Lent. His movements are languid but purposeful, his body is shrunken, and by contrast his eyes look abnormally large. This allows one to notice, what one might not at another time, that a toad has about the most beautiful eye of any living creature. It is like gold, or more exactly it is like the golden-coloured semi-precious stone which one sometimes sees in signet rings, and which I think is called a chrysoberyl.

For a few days after getting into the water the toad concentrates on building up his strength by eating small insects. Presently he has swollen to his normal size again, and then he goes through a phase of intense sexiness. All he knows, at least if he is a male toad, is that he wants to get his arms round something, and if you offer him a stick, or even your finger, he will cling to it with surprising strength and take a long time to discover that it is not a female toad. Frequently one comes upon shapeless masses of ten or twenty toads rolling over and over in the water, one clinging to another without distinction of sex. By degrees, however, they sort themselves out into couples, with the male duly sitting on the female’s back. You can now distinguish males from females, because the male is smaller, darker and sits on top, with his arms tightly clasped round the female’s neck. After a day or two the spawn is laid in long strings which wind themselves in and out of the reeds and soon become invisible. A few more weeks, and the water is alive with masses of tiny tadpoles which rapidly grow larger, sprout hind-legs, then forelegs, then shed their tails: and finally, about the middle of the summer, the new generation of toads, smaller than one’s thumb-nail but perfect in every particular, crawl out of the water to begin the game anew.

I mention the spawning of the toads because it is one of the phenomena of Spring which most deeply appeal to me, and because the toad, unlike the skylark and the primrose, has never had much of a boost from poets. But I am aware that many people do not like reptiles or amphibians, and I am not suggesting that in order to enjoy the spring you have to take an interest in toads. There are also the crocus, the missel thrush, the cuckoo, the blackthorn, etc. The point is that the pleasures of spring are available to everybody, and cost nothing. Even in the most sordid street the coming of spring will register itself by some sign or other, if it is only a brighter blue between the chimney pots or the vivid green of an elder sprouting on a blitzed site. Indeed it is remarkable how Nature goes on existing unofficially, as it were, in the very heart of London. I have seen a kestrel flying over the Deptford gasworks, and I have heard a first-rate performance by a blackbird in the Euston Road. There must be some hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of birds living inside the four-mile radius, and it is rather a pleasing thought that none of them pays a halfpenny of rent.

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“Is it politically reprehensible… to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money’

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As for Spring, not even the narrow and gloomy streets round the Bank of England are quite able to exclude it. It comes seeping in everywhere, like one of those new poison gases which pass through all filters. The spring is commonly referred to as “a miracle,” and during the past five or six years this worn-out figure of speech has taken on a new lease of life. After the sort of winters we have had to endure recently, the spring does seem miraculous, because it has become gradually harder and harder to believe that it is actually going to happen. Every February since 1940 I have found myself thinking that this time Winter is going to be permanent. But Persephone, like the toads, always rises from the dead at about the same moment. Suddenly, towards the end of March, the miracle happens and the decaying slum in which I live is transfigured. Down in the square the sooty privets have turned bright green, the leaves are thickening on the chestnut trees, the daffodils are out, the wallflowers are budding, the policeman’s tunic looks positively a pleasant shade of blue, the fishmonger greets his customers with a smile, and even the sparrows are quite a different colour, having felt the balminess of the air and nerved themselves to take a bath, their first since last September.

Is it wicked to take a pleasure in Spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird’s song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which does not cost money and does not have what the editors of left-wing newspapers call a class angle? There is no doubt that many people think so. I know by experience that a favourable reference to “Nature” in one of my articles is liable to bring me abusive letters, and though the key-word in these letters is usually “sentimental”, two ideas seem to be mixed up in them. One is that any pleasure in the actual process of life encourages a sort of political quietism. People, so the thought runs, ought to be discontented, and it is our job to multiply our wants and not simply to increase our enjoyment of the things we have already. The other idea is that this is the age of machines and that to dislike the machine, or even to want to limit its domination, is backward-looking, reactionary and slightly ridiculous. This is often backed up by the statement that a love of Nature is a foible of urbanised people who have no notion what Nature is really like. Those who really have to deal with the soil, so it is argued, do not love the soil, and do not take the faintest interest in birds or flowers, except from a strictly utilitarian point of view. To love the country one must live in the town, merely taking an occasional week-end ramble at the warmer times of year.

This last idea is demonstrably false. Medieval literature, for instance, including the popular ballads, is full of an almost Georgian enthusiasm for Nature, and the art of agricultural peoples such as the Chinese and Japanese centre always round trees, birds, flowers, rivers, mountains. The other idea seems to me to be wrong in a subtler way. Certainly we ought to be discontented, we ought not simply to find out ways of making the best of a bad job, and yet if we kill all pleasure in the actual process of life, what sort of future are we preparing for ourselves? If a man cannot enjoy the return of Spring, why should he be happy in a labour-saving Utopia? What will he do with the leisure that the machine will give him? I have always suspected that if our economic and political problems are ever really solved, life will become simpler instead of more complex, and that the sort of pleasure one gets from finding the first primrose will loom larger than the sort of pleasure one gets from eating an ice to the tune of a Wurlitzer. I think that by retaining one’s childhood love of such things as trees, fishes, butterflies and – to return to my first instance – toads, one makes a peaceful and decent future a little more probable, and that by preaching the doctrine that nothing is to be admired except steel and concrete, one merely makes it a little surer that human beings will have no outlet for their surplus energy except in hatred and leader worship.

At any rate, spring is here, even in London N1, and they can’t stop you enjoying it. This is a satisfying reflection. How many a time have I stood watching the toads mating, or a pair of hares having a boxing match in the young corn, and thought of all the important persons who would stop me enjoying this if they could. But luckily they can’t. So long as you are not actually ill, hungry, frightened or immured in a prison or a holiday camp, Spring is still Spring. The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeply as they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.

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George Orwell (1903-1950) was an English novelist, poet, essayist, journalist, and critic. Best known for his allegorical and dystopian works Animal Farm and 1984, his written oeuvre spans genre and medium but is consistently displays a level of social criticism with a deep emphasis on class struggle around the world.

The Two of Wands (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  Dominion, the Two of Wands
Number: 2
Astrology: Mars in Aries
Qabalah: Chokmah of Yod

Chris Gabriel March 29, 2025

The Two of Wands is the card of childish will - the desire to take, to hold, and to say yes or no. This card is how we begin to make our way in the world and learn to control our environment.

In Rider, a man in red looks out from a castle wall over an expanse of sea and mountains. Beside him are two wands, and in his hand is a globe. He desires to control the world, to move ships, goods, men, and to expand his influence and power.

In Thoth, we have two large Dorjes: Buddhist wands symbolizing the power of thunder and the strength of the diamond. They are crossed, and from them six flames emit. The card is astrologically given to Mars in Aries.

In Marseille, we have two crossed wands. Four leaves emerge from the center, and two uprooted flowers frame the top and bottom. Qabalistically, the card is the Wisdom of the King.

The Wisdom of the King is Dominion.

Just as the Two of Swords relates to a child’s legs and first steps they take, the Two of Wands is the arms, the hands, and, ultimately, the fists. As the baby of the zodiac,  Aries is the  child who quickly  learns how to get what they want, to reach out and grab it,  and how to push away and reject what they do not want. To be safe and comfortable they need to control their environment. This is the force of Mars in Aries, the childish will applied to everything.

Just as children like to get what they want, so too do Kings. Their simple desires are sated, and their complex desires are worked towards by the people. This is often a desire for larger and larger dominions. 

Alexander the Great conquered out of a pure and childlike will, and wept when he had no land left to conquer, no new toys to play with. Heraclitus and Shakespeare alike recognized the childlike character of the Gods, that their wills were playful and fickle. The world, and the people therein are simply toys to exert the will upon.

The Rider card gives a fantastic image of this, the great globe itself reduced to a toy ball. This is shown perfectly when Charlie Chaplin’s Great Dictator plays with an inflatable globe. It is the pure, simple, childish will that wants world domination. 

While many great and terrible men have tried this, it is exceedingly rare that any of us will meet people like this. In our lives, this force appears as domineering individuals who want to control what’s around them, be it a neighborhood, a workplace, a house, or, especially, a relationship. We have all met very controlling people, this card shows us this desire for control is innate and childish.

When we pull this card, we can expect to deal with controlling figures, or a conflict of our own. Whether you decide to get out of the way or get your way, consider what it is that you will.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

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Ascension is Now

Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, c. 1410.

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Molly Hankins March 27, 2025

Countless ancient cultures prophesied a time when the human race would  expand their consciousness and ascend into a higher frequency of existence. Commonly referred to as ascension, the major increase in anomalous activity of solar flares and magnetic fluctuations over the last 18 months are physical indicators that this process is well underway. The spiritual teacher Drunvalo Melchizedek has spent most of his life writing and teaching about how to prepare for this ascension. He understands it as a  shift from living in the head to our hearts and primarily identifying as part of the whole of life instead of as separate individuals. 

While a  more fundamentalist Christian take refers to this as  the rapture or end-times, Drunvalo’s interpretation of ascension is about integrating with different layers of reality via a shift in awareness that occurs internally. Both interpretations point to dramatic shifts in the physical world, but rather than those changes resulting in souls being raptured to heaven, ascension says this shift in consciousness and dimensional integration will result in humans creating heaven on Earth.

As of the date of publication of this article, we are between a lunar full-moon eclipse in Virgo, a practical, detail-oriented Earth sign, and a solar eclipse in Aries, an initiatory fire energy during a new moon. This period marks what Tibetan Buddhists call the Bardo - the period between death and rebirth - and it has a supercharged energy for cleansing destructive patterns. Across personal lives, global events, and scientific activity we notice new patterns are becoming the norm. In 2023 there were 13 X-class solar flares, which is the largest measurable class, well within the average annual range. In 2024 there were 50 and as of February of 2025, we’ve experienced 4.

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“What is happening at the macro planetary scale must also be happening at the micro-scale within us.”

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Oscillations in Earth’s electromagnetic field, known as Schumann resonance, have shown extreme fluctuation particularly since the lunar eclipse on March 14th. There has been a major increase in data blackouts, which means the incoming frequency exceeds the threshold our measuring devices can interpret. Induction coils, made of an iron core surrounded by thousands of insulated copper coils that are sensitive to rapid magnetic field fluctuations,  can seemingly detect energy only within a fixed range of parameters. We are currently living through a new era where our planet’s electromagnetic frequency is beginning to move beyond those measurable parameters more regularly.

These fluctuations are usually attributed by the scientific community to be the result of solar storms, geomagnetic activity and environmental factors, and yet lately we are seeing entirely new patterns of data. Still baffled by the discrepancies between Newtonian, Earthly physics and quantum mechanics, our current model of scientific understanding cannot account for the multidimensional upgrades taking place. Drunvalo’s teachings point to a theory that the fabric of our electromagnetic field is evolving along with our consciousness, experiencing a new range of harmonics beyond what can presently be measured.

In keeping with the famous occult axiom, “As above, so below,” what is happening at the macro planetary scale must also be happening at the micro-scale within us. This period of time between eclipses is what numerologist and astrologist Kaitlyn Kaerhart calls a realignment. In her Aries solar eclipse guide she writes, “Eclipses are wild cards. They open fated doors, close outdated timelines and rearrange reality in ways we don’t usually see coming. Aries is the sign of of selfhood, instinct, initiation and raw courage, and that’s exactly what’s being activated in all of us. This eclipse also falls on the Aries-Libra axis, so it’s not just about you. It’s about you in relation to others.” 

The solar eclipse this week also falls in the fourth week of the month, and according to Kaerhart, four energy is all about embracing a steady rhythm to create stability through structure and lay strong foundations for what’s to come. She recommends meditation, body movement and being in nature as a means of aligning with these changes so they become part of a strong foundation for our ascension of consciousness. As Drunvalo says, “When you are in your heart, nothing needs to be done to bring change. It will happen automatically and with grace.”

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Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

The Power of Fear

The Nightmare, Henry Fuseli. 1781.

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Suzanne Stabile March 25, 2025

I’m mindful that when I gather with my colleagues at an event that includes several keynote speakers, each of whom are speaking from their expertise, that I’m likely to be well received.  While others  talk about topics such as scripture, prayer, theology or perhaps cultural challenges that we face, I am talking to people about their preferred topic: themselves.  We all like to know more about ourselves, to understand why we do the very things we seem to not want to do, and to change ourselves for the better;  we just don’t know how to make the necessary adjustments.

In this series of articles, I’m exploring the emotions of shame, fear and anger as they are related to Enneagram wisdom.  Each of us  experience all three, and so we must have a healthy respect for each and use it for its value, acknowledge how each can be  helpful and harmful.  In addition, we need to be mindful of their power without allowing them unnecessary and unwanted influence in our lives.

Shame or fear or anger are respectively  the default emotions for each personality type.  For Enneagram Fives, Sixes and Sevens - the numbers that make up the Head or Thinking Triad - fear informs how they see themselves, others and the world.  If your Enneagram Number is within this Triad, it will be helpful for you to know what fear looks like and how you can manage the ways it shows up in your life.

I have often found that the stories we tell about ourselves and those we love help us become  more of who we want to be and less of who we struggle to defend.  My husband Joe is a truly gifted pastor, but he is also quite good looking and attracts attention from other women.  I usually handle it well but at one point when I was struggling with some professional choices in my work, I found myself over-focused on one woman’s  behavior and her desire for Joe’s attention.  

We both believe and teach that every person can benefit from having a therapist and a spiritual director and so I took the question as to why I was struggling to my therapist.   I guess I must have gotten a little whipped up because after a while he said, “Are you about finished with your need to talk about her?”  

Annoyed, I replied, “I might be. Why?”   

“Well, I wonder if we might want to explore why you are hanging all of your anxiety on that poor woman’s bones.” 

Anxiety in all nine Enneagram Numbers is transformed into either anger, fear or shame.  In thinking about and learning from fear, it is helpful for all three numbers in the triad to remember this:

A Seven’s fear is usually focused inward.  They are afraid of what they might discover within themselves.  Fives are fearful of the outside world and their ability to navigate safely.  Sixes are fearful of both, moving back and forth between the two.  Regardless of your Enneagram number, we need to be willing to observe our resistance to reality, our attachment to self-image, and our fear.  All three apply to everyone but Fear is especially problematic for Fives, Sixes and Sevens.

Sandra Maitri described the fear of a Five in one sentence, “Fives are afraid of engulfment.”  They maintain a private inner world,  observing rather than actively participating in what goes on around them, perhaps as a means of protection. This is  driven by an inner sense of scarcity and emptiness.  Afraid that nothing will be coming to them from the outside, they “act” like they don’t want anything and don’t care.  They can begin to believe their own performance and thus  limit their expressions of wishes and desires.

Fear causes fives to become observers of life rather than active participants.  They are run from too much engagement and too much involvement.  Part of the reason for this is that they have a limited amount of energy and every encounter of any kind uses the  resource that they fear will be depleted before they get back to the safety of what is usually known and predictable.

Sixes, on the other hand, are coping with anxiety instead of fear, though the two often get conflated.  Anxiety is about possible futures and that is where most of the mental energy of a Six is invested.  They tend to deal with their anxious feelings by finding someone or something to connect with that offers a bedrock of safety.  

This can regrettably cause Sixes to trust neither themselves or anyone else.   Those not trusting themselves are referred to as Phobic Sixes.  They are overly fearful and as a result they often give their allegiance to structures and belief systems.  Those not trusting others are known as Counter-phobic, meaning they are intent on proving they are not afraid by conquering the fears that hold the most power over them.

Sevens manage their fear with a smokescreen of activity.  They are the Number on the Enneagram that can reframe any negative into a positive almost instantly.  To experience anything as other than it should be threatens to bring up buried pain and unresolved grief.  Sevens live in the magical world of their imaginations where all is, or shall be, well.

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“A quiet mind is a place of knowing and guidance that gives us confidence to act in the world.  And when these qualities are unreachable, we feel fear.”

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The Thinking triad is about finding a sense of inner guidance and support.  And it is a very challenging proposition because these personality types have lost touch with what we refer to in the spiritual tradition as the quiet mind.  These are the people who trust what is in their heads over feelings or doing.  When they are in their Personality, the mind is not naturally quiet nor is it naturally “knowing.”  Instead, it is looking for a strategy that will make it feel, at the very least, okay enough to function in the world.

Our minds have the potential to help us settle down, help us feel supported and safely aware.   A quiet mind is a place of knowing and guidance that gives us confidence to act in the world.  And when these qualities are unreachable, we feel fear.  The three numbers in this Triad each react to fear in different ways.

Fives respond by reducing their personal needs and retreating from life.  They have a sense that they are too frail and insubstantial to safely survive in the world.  It feels to them as if the only safe place is in their minds, so they use their energy to gather and stockpile information.  It’s hard for them to believe they have what is required to meet the daily demands of life, so they move, somewhat seamlessly, between home and the world, and back again, hoping that they will have a new insight or understanding to give them the security to emerge.

Sevens, by contrast, move toward life appearing to be afraid of nothing.  They are outwardly so adventurous and entertaining it can be hard to understand why they are in the Fear Triad.  They are full of fear but not of the outside world, instead  they are afraid of being trapped in emotional pain, grief and especially feelings of anxiety.  Their escape route is to plunge into activity or the anticipation of the next thing they have planned.  It takes a lot of energy to hold at bay the hurts and anxieties of life.  For Sixes, attention and energy are directed both inward and outward in a rhythm that is calming and feels somewhat safe.  When they feel anxious on the inside, they greet the world like a Seven would with action, anticipating a favorable outcome.  However, if their expectations are not met, they begin to fear they will be overwhelmed by demands from others and incapable of performing proficiently.  So, predictably, they jump back inside of themselves like Fives.  Sixes look for an authority figure who is trustworthy, strong and authoritative whom they can follow.  They lose their inner guidance by seeking guidance from others.  While they are looking for enough support to become independent, they find themselves dependent on the very people and systems they were using in their quest to trust themselves and their own ways of seeing the world.

Fives are convinced that support is either not available or it is unreliable.  As a result, they try to figure out everything on their own.  The problem is that “going it alone” means they must reduce their need for anyone.  Independence with no path to interdependence is no solution at all.

Sevens try to break away from fear by pursuing substitutes for the nurturing they think they lack.  They go after whatever they believe will make them feel secure and long for satisfaction. They respond to the lack of guidance by trying everything as if by a process of elimination they could discover the nurturing and care they are looking for. 

Living in a culture where many institutions capitalize on pedaling fear and encouraging anxiety, is very difficult for those who are in the Thinking triad.  Contemplative practices can help calm the fear.  Responding from a quiet mind will always be helpful.  And for these numbers it is essential that you trust yourself.  

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Suzanne Stabile is a speaker, teacher, and internationally recognized Enneagram master teacher who has taught thousands of people over the last thirty years. She is the author of ‘The Path Between Us’, and coauthor, with Ian Morgan Cron, of ‘The Road Back to You’. She is also the creator and host of The Enneagram Journey podcast. Along with her husband, Rev. Joseph Stabile, she is cofounder of Life in the Trinity Ministry, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry committed to the spiritual growth and formation of adults.

The Six of Wands (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  Victory, the Six of Wands
Number: 6
Astrology: Jupiter in Leo
Qabalah: Tiphereth of Yod

Chris Gabriel March 22, 2025

The Six of Wands is the highpoint of the suit - the fires burn their brightest and ascend, the efforts of the past cards are rewarded here. This is individuality, notability, and power. This is a card of victory.

In Rider, we have a triumphant man dressed in laurels, with another  carried atop his wand. His horse is cloaked in green, and he is cloaked in red. All around him,  figures hold up their wands and hail him as a hero returning from a victorious campaign.

In Thoth, there are six wands, two topped by lotuses, two topped by Set-creatures, and two topped with solar disks. Flames rise from their intersections. The wands are the orange of Leo, and the background is the violet of Jupiter.

In Marseille, the six wands form an X, from which plants and flowers emanate. Qabalistically, this is the Beauty of the King.

This is the end of the republic and the rise of Caesar, when one figure stands out above the rest. As Jupiter in Leo, it is a card of nonconformity and eccentric genius, not for the sake of standing out, but for the sake of gaining power. 

Many cards in  the suit of Wands concern the difficult amassing and keeping of power. This, however, is the desired state of the suit; the Ace sparked the fire, but it burns warmest and brightest at six, and only gets more difficult from here.

The same is true of victory, it is always short lived - a temporary reward in an endless power struggle. But this period produces immense change and revaluation can occur. What was slow and tiresome before now becomes easy, the victorious powers are able to move freely.

Rider shows us that  the victorious one is a “head above the rest”, able to see past the crowds and chaos. A line from Guilliame Apollinaire’s Victoire puts it perfectly:

Victory will be above all
To see truly into the distance
To see everything
Up close
So that everything can have a new name

The “New” motif of the Three of Wands comes to fruition here as the “Make it New” is now able to occur. This is God allowing Adam to name all the animals, according to his uppermost role. This is the renaming of months after Julius and Augustus, the Revolutionary government of France creating Thermidor, a new month, for a new calendar, and far more. Ancient Christians sought to change the pagan names of the planets and zodiac. To reshape the world in one’s own image is the will of God, and those that would be as Gods. These sweeping actions are only possible at the highest point of power.

When we pull this card, we can expect to achieve our desires, enjoy the rewards of our work,and  stand out in what we do. Be sure to make good use of this time and move things forward toward your long term goals. Do not rest on your laurels.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

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The Principles of the Nature Cure System, A Fragment

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One of the founding fathers of so called ‘Alternative Medicine’, Benedict Lust established a principle of Naturopathy which promoted non invasive self healing, using the medicine of the world around us rather than chemical or developed drugs. Though many of the practices Lust called for have since been widely and rightly discredited, many have become accepted into the mainstream, and scientifically endorsed. His criticisms of the pharmaceutical industry, from the turn of the 20th century up until his death in 1945, remain relevant and potent today. This piece is a fragment from the introduction to his ‘Universal Naturopathic Encyclopedia’, a guide to drugless therapy that combined and utilised folk practices, vitalism, and other alternative cures, published in 1918.

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Benedict Lust, March 18, 2025

Since the earliest ages, Medical Science has been of all sciences the most unscientific. Its professors, with few exceptions, have sought to cure disease by the magic of pills and potions and poisons that attacked the ailment with the idea of suppressing the symptoms instead of attacking the real cause of the ailment.

Medical science has always believed in the superstition that the use of chemical substances which are harmful and destructive to human life will prove an efficient substitute for the violation of laws, and in this way encourages the belief that a man may go the limit in self indulgence that weaken and destroy his physical system, and then hope to be absolved from his physical ailments by swallowing a few pills, or submitting to an injection of a serum, that are supposed to act as vicarious redeemers of the physical organism and counteract life-long practices that are poisonous and wholly destructive to the patient's well-being.

From the earliest ages to the present time, the priests of medicine have discovered that it is ten times easier to obtain ten dollars from a man by acting upon his superstition, than it is to extract one dollar from him, by appealing to reason and common sense. Having this key to a gold mine within their grasp, we find official medicine indulging at all times in the most blatant, outrageous, freakish and unscientific methods of curing disease, because the methods were in harmony with the medical prestige of the physician.

Away back in pre-historic times, disease was regarded as a demon to be exorcised from its victim, and the medicine man of his tribe belabored the body of his patient with a bag in which rattled bones and feathers, and no doubt in extreme cases the tremendous faith in this process of cure that was engendered in the mind of the patient really cured some ailments for which mental science, not the bag of bones and feathers, should be given credit.

Coming down to the middle ages, the Witches' Broth — one ingredient of which was the blood of a child murderer drawn in the dark of the moon — was sworn to, by official medicine, as a remedy for every disease.

In a later period, the docteur a la mode, between his taking pinches of snuff from a gold snuff box, would order the patient bled as a remedy for what he denominated spirits, vapors, megrims, or miasms.

Following this pseudo-scientific diagnosis and method of cure, came the drugging phase in which symptoms of disease were unmercifully attacked by all kinds of drugs, alkalis, acids and poisons which were supposed, that by suffocating the symptoms of disease, by smothering their destructive energy, to thus enhance the vitality of the individual. All these cures have had their inception, their period of extensive application, and their certain desuetude. The contemporary fashion of healing disease is that of serums and pills, which, instead of being an improvement on the fake medicines of former ages are of no value in the cure of disease, but on the contrary introduce lesions into the human body of the most distressing and deadly import.

The policy of expediency is at the basis of medical drug healing. It is along the lines of self-indulgence, indifference, ignorance and lack of self-control that drug medicine lives, moves and has its being. The sleeping swineries of mankind are wholly exploited by a system of medical treatment, founded on poisonous and revolting products, whose chemical composition and whose mode of attacking disease, are equally unknown to their originators, and this is called "scientific medicine."

Like the alchemist of old who circulated the false belief that he could transmute the baser metals into gold, in like manner the vivisector claims that he can coin the agony of animals into cures for human disease. He insists on cursing animals that he may bless mankind with such curses.

The natural system for curing disease is based on a return to nature in regulating the diet, breathing, exercising, bathing and the employment of various forces to eliminate the poisonous products in the system, and so raise the vitality of the patient to a proper standard of health.

The prime object of natural healing is to give the principle of life the line of least resistance, that it may enable man to possess the most abundant health.

What is life? The finite mind of man fails to comprehend the nature of this mysterious principle. The philosopher says "Life is the sum of the forces that resist detail," but that definition only increases its obscurity. Life is a most precious endowment of protoplasm, of the various combinations of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen, and other purely mineral substances in forming organic tissues. As Othello says, referring to Desdemona's life, which he compares to the light of a candle —

"If I quench thee thou flaming minister, 
I can thy former light restore 
Should I repent me; but once put out thy light, 
I know not whence is that Promethean heat 
That can thy light relume."

The spark of life flickers in the sockets of millions and is about to go out. What system of medicine will most surely restore that flickering spark to a steady, burning flame?

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Benedict Lust (1872 – 1945) was a German-American doctor who was one of the founders of naturopathic medicine. He helped introduce ideas of psychotherapy, Yoga, and Ayurveda therapy to an American audience.

The Four of Wands (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  Completion, the Four of Wands
Number: 4
Astrology: Venus in Aries
Qabalah: Chesed of Yod

Chris Gabriel March 15, 2025

In the four of wands we see both the quick fulfilment of desires and the ability to regularly achieve them. The daily virtue taught by the three of wands pays off here, with an effective and pleasurable routine.

In Rider, we see two robed figures holding up small boughs. Immediately in the foreground are four wands, with a bough of fruits and ribbons atop them. Behind the two figures is  a castle and a group of revellers.

In Thoth, we are shown an astrological image - four wands tipped by the ram of Aries and the dove of Venus. They oppose one another, and form a circle. There is fire in the center, and the earthy green of Venus decorates the background.

In Marseille, there are four wands, out of which two plants and two flowers emerge. Qabalistically, this is the Mercy of the King.

Astrologically, Venus in Aries is a detrimental position, but as this card shows, that doesn’t mean it can’t be fun. This is a ‘shotgun wedding’ rather than an extravagant and beautiful ball. It is a passionate relationship, but not necessarily one with a future.

The four of cups is a good mood, with the comfort of home, but it already bears the seeds of its undoing. Venus in Aries is much like “Beauty and the Beast”, which may work out in fairy tales, but usually proves unstable in our lives. Aries seeks immediate satisfactions while Venus enjoys the dance. Venus takes its time  to converse with a partner. Aries wants just one thing, and it wants it now. They are naturally opposed, but can be exciting when the chemistry is right.

Both Jodorowsky and Crowley emphasise this card's relation to routine. Our natural drives and whims form a circuit, and while this can work well for a time, routine can wear down creativity. This is the relationship that sexually satisfies both parties, but fails to reach higher resonance.

In its most dignified form, it represents a passionate bout of work, a relationship, or a period of partying that leads to greater satisfaction and ability. So long as it is not permanent, all is well.

When pulling this card, we can expect a good time. We may find inspiration in  a new flame, or find a good rhythm to our life. The key is passion; as soon as things get boring, this card is out of play.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

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Cosmic Respiration and the Four Elements

God Breathing Life into Adam. Franz Xaver Karl Panko, c.1760.

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Molly Hankins March 13, 2025

In Kabblaistic tradition, many of life’s truths are revealed through natural functions and the greatest mystery of all is revealed through our breath. We come in and out of physical form with the rhythmic pattern of our breathing, and by paying attention to this, we learn where we must focus to align with the natural rhythm of life. Alchemy teaches us that transforming each element into one of greater subtlety is how we extract the most energy from matter. So when we learn to breathe consciously we can absorb the subtle energies of the universe more readily, in the same way that we can extract more nutrients from our food by thoroughly chewing.

Presenting at The Science of Consciousness conference last year, professor and spiritual teacher Hide Saegusa presented research showing a correlation between the depth and slowness of breath and an increase in reports of synchronicity and manifestation experiences. His work points to what 20th century Kabbalah teachers such as Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov believe -conscious breathing allows us to  absorb more energy, which increases our capacity for magic. Deep, slow, deliberate breathing not only aligns us with the natural ebb and flow of life, but also sets free the subtle energies contained in the air we breathe. 

As Aïvanhov wrote in his book Fruits of the Tree of Life, “The air we breathe is like a mouthful of food, a mouthful of extraordinary forces and energies. If you let it out too quickly, the lungs don’t have time to cook, digest and assimilate it for the benefit of the whole body.” By consciously holding air in our lungs, he contends that our body is able to perform a function equivalent to the ignition and explosions of an internal combustion engine. This energy can only be generated by the compression created when we hold our breath such that it’s forced to circulate through all the tiny alveoli in our lungs.  

The Wim Hof method, by contrast, asks us to hold our breath after exhalation rather than inhalation, but from the perspective of generating subtle energy the result is the same. The element of air is converted into fire by the inherent discomfort of the  process. Subtle energies are then absorbed by our cells, which are predominantly made of water. Our physical, Earthly-matter bodies can then use this energy in a process that unifies the four elements of air, fire, water, and Earth in alignment with a natural process he calls ‘cosmic respiration.’The harmonization and alignment this provides  leads to reality becoming more malleable. Practitioners of these methods then, Aïvanhov asserts, become more adept at influencing reality.

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“By consciously creating more energy to fuel these natural processes, we free up more energy for creativity, magical practice and anything else we care to do.”

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We can apply the same conscious practice to absorbing light from the sun,  By deliberately observing the light as it travels through air, we can “hold onto it” with our awareness and thereby recreate the same process of using the four elements. “We absorb the light through a network of minute channels in our bodies and our whole being vibrates with greater intensity. Of course, light can affect some work in us without our conscious collaboration, but if we are attentive to the work it is doing and eager to take part in it, the results will be greatly enhanced.” The “luminous particles”  released by consciously focusing on absorbing the sun’s rays strengthen our energy and physical bodies by optimizing the process of cellular turnover. Everyday, 1% of our cells, around 330 billion, are replaced with new ones. By consciously creating more energy to fuel these natural processes, we free up more energy for creativity, magical practice and anything else we care to do. 

Saegusa’ suggests that breathing two to three times per minute is the threshold at which there is a statistically significant increase of synchronicity and successful manifestation. While this is impossible to achieve when our autonomic nervous system is in control, consciously practicing slow breathing activates our parasympathetic nervous system, which makes 10 to 15-second inhalations and exhalations attainable. Through practice,  we can train our autonomic nervous system to naturally take longer, deeper breaths. Apply this to the cosmic respiration of sunlight and we can approximate a method of holding our awareness of absorbing sunlight for 10 to 15 seconds at a time for a few minutes a day. Each time we perform this practice, we do so knowing that sunlight causes us to grow and flourish, whether we’re basking in physical sunlight or consciously connecting with the sun metaphysically. 

Most of us have been conditioned to believe we are human beings with a soul, but the premise of cosmic respiration is exactly the opposite. We are souls that have a human body, and by attuning ourselves to this practice, we can supercharge the energy fueling our physical form.

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Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

A Deeper Sense of Home

M. Palacio, 1890.

Tuukka Toivonen March 11, 2025

‘The predicament of private life today is shown by its arena. Dwelling, in the proper sense, is now impossible. […] The functional modern habitations designed from a tabula rasa, are living-cases of manufactured by experts for philistines, or factory sites that have stayed into the consumption sphere, devoid of all relation to the occupant.’   

- Theodor Adorno's Minima Moralia (1951/1994¹)

What does home mean to you? Is it a place you like to return to at the end of a long day? Is it a container of calm solitude? The warm presence and familiar smiles of significant others or the enthusiastic welcome of a furry pet? Passing through the front door, do you see yourself exiting a stressful, chaotic world and entering a domestic realm where the rumblings and unpredictable movements of that world outside give way to security and comfort? My guess is that this sense of relative peace and interiority is integral at least to your idea of the home, if not its entire reality.

If we take a moment to reflect, most of us can probably call to mind the feeling of being ‘at home’ in a place or dwelling. We can also easily imagine its opposite, being ill at home and feeling uncomfortable, unsettled or like one does not really belong to a place. Until a short while ago, I had never thought very seriously about the meaning of home beyond these basic distinctions. Then a brief post on trail hiking prompted me to think again about the nature of being-at-home-ness. 

The post recounted how a good number of the hikers appear to find a sense of home on the trail. These explorers seem to feel most ‘at home’ not when sheltered inside a fixed structure or a familiar daily setting, but when in movement – under the open sky, traversing and surviving challenging terrains in unpredictable conditions – often taking considerable risks along the way. 

This subtle, perhaps simple insight got me wondering whether our assumptions of fixedness and insularity associated with the home, which now seem normal and even ideal to many of us, were but distortions that kept us from seeing a more complex reality. If it really is possible for some of us to experience a sense of home out in the open, in constantly changing conditions, does that not suggest that physical seclusion and stability are in fact not essential for feeling at home in a place and in our present lives? Does it not imply, further, that we might not be quite as fulfilled  and nurtured in our contemporary physical and social home environments as we tend to assume? Perhaps the truth is that many of us have yet to fully explore what could truly make us feel at home in the world.

If we look at architectural history and anthropology of the home, we can help set these ponderings in a wider context. In the classic work Experiencing Architecture, Steen Eiler Rasmussen notes that before the onset of modernity, the very crafting of homes and essential implements was a communal, rather than private or commercial, enterprise that entire villages took part in. The individuals who would come to occupy a building were directly involved in its formation, and the consequence was that ‘houses were built with a natural feeling for place, materials and use and the result was a remarkably suitable comeliness’ (Rasmussen 1959/1992, preface). By the middle of the 20th century, much of this had changed and not for the better, according to Rasmussen: ‘in our highly civilized society, the houses which ordinary people are doomed to live in and gaze upon are on the whole without quality’. What had been lost was not merely the aesthetic harmony of housing or the communal, situated dimension of the home-building process, but also a broader sense of attunement with local ecosystems, landscapes and even seasons. The anthropologist Tim Ingold has written extensively on dwelling, environmental perception and settings that should be viewed as fully alive rather than inert. He observes that industrialized modes of production have disrupted the sense of reciprocity that people feel towards the land they inhabit while also stymieing the local material and relational flows that constitute a living place. 

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“Despite the dramatic erosion of all that used to root our physical dwellings in something greater than their most visible features, what should we do to find a deeper sense of home in contemporary conditions?”

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This understanding can help us appreciate why the alienation and isolation of our present-day homes is at once more profound and tragic than we might initially envisage. It is as if the living roots and rich entanglements that used to make up a home have been surgically removed, leaving behind a mere empty shell, an anonymously designed structure without personality serving as a socially unmoored container. We may have become more mobile and free from the constraints of place-based communities as a result, but at what cost?

Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?, Richard Hamilton. 1956.

As disturbing as this may seem, it can also bring us some relief. If our abodes have themselves become radically untethered from the life-giving relations and processes that used to ground them in place, it should not then come as a surprise that we struggle to feel fully alive in them. How could we feel a deep sense of homeliness and rootedness in buildings or places that have become so abjectly rootless, lifeless, and deprived of the flows that used to both constitute them and nurture the inhabitants’ souls?

Before you pack up your rucksack and set out on a long hike or pilgrimage, consider instead searching for a nearby place that retains some degree of rootedness, history and entanglement. For Jenny Odell, the artist and author of How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, such qualities could be found in Oakland’s Rose Garden, built into a quiet hillside. Having made the decision to ground herself in this tangible place, Odell quickly came to value the way in which the garden offered her an enriching, contemplative space. Far from furnishing an experience of total isolation, the garden opened her up to notice the diverse forms of life frolicking around her, starting with birdsong. As her moments of ‘doing nothing’ continued, the sound of ravens, robins, song sparrows, chickadees, goldfinches, tomawhees, hawks, nuthatches and others became so familiar to her that she no longer had to strain to recognize them. These unexpected friendships and the coziness she felt within the garden’s labyrinthine layout gave Odell a real sense of home not in a building or even a group of humans but in a fluid bubble that while removed, was a fruitful setting for connection, affective experience and fulfilment. It does not matter  whether or not Odell viewed the Rose Garden as an actual home but that she found something that powerfully grounded her life, her thinking and her artistry, through stillness as well as movement, and through her newfound other-than-human acquaintances. 

Architects and designers, too, are starting to pay attention to how a stronger sense of home, or at least homeliness, might be supported by their creations and the ways in which these interact with their surroundings, even in urban environments. The maverick Japanese architect Yamashita Taiju elevates coziness into a core design principle that informs how he creates everything from offices to commercial complexes. He seeks to also cultivate a sense of flow (nagare) and movement in and around the structures he enacts, believing that without a lively sense of dynamism spaces grow stale and boring. Many other designers are experimenting with how the boundaries between the 'inside’ and ‘outside’ of a structure could be erased or at least minimized when crafting comfortable new dwellings and how they might rejoin local ecological rhythms and regenerative material flows. 

So, despite the dramatic erosion of all that used to root our physical dwellings in something greater than their most visible features, what should we do to find a deeper sense of home in contemporary conditions? I believe that, as a first step, it will help if we set aside binary thinking and embrace how privacy and connection, shelter and openness, stability and movement can combine to generate a fulfilling experience of being ‘at home’. Indeed, it is the presence of these seemingly opposing dynamics that used to bestow our homes with aliveness and meaning. That said, we do not need to (and cannot) revive past realities; instead, what we can do is translate the search for a deeper sense of home into a creative act. We can rediscover the kinds of flows and nurturing qualities that feel both anchoring and enlivening for us in our unique life-worlds. In doing so, we are at liberty to draw inspiration from those who feel truly at home on the trail as well as those who feel more cozy in capsule-like concrete apartments floating above sprawling cities. Perhaps this is how we will ultimately find a more enduring sense of home on Earth as well, as a species that so often appears ill at ease on the very planet that birthed it. 

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Tuukka Toivonen, Ph.D. (Oxon.) is a sociologist interested in ways of being, relating and creating that can help us reconnect with – and regenerate – the living world, in this age of the artificial.

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¹  Adorno, T. W. (1994). Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life (E. F. N. Jephcott, Trans.; 8th ed.). Verso. (Original work published 1951)
²  Rasmussen, S. E. 1992. Experiencing architecture (23rd ed). MIT press. (Original work published in 1959).
³ Odell, J. 2019. How to do nothing: Resisting the attention economy. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.

The Six of Cups (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  Pleasure, the Six of Cups
Number: 6
Astrology: Sun in Scorpio
Qabalah: Tiphereth of He

Chris Gabriel March 8, 2025

The Six of Cups is just enough: a perfect amount of wine, a good cigarette, the right portion of a meal. This is a card of enjoyment, of the feeling when we find exactly what we want. It is  harmony and balance between ourselves and the world.

In Rider, we find a picturesque scene. A boy in blue with a red cowl hands a potted flower to a little girl in a spotted yellow dress. They are in a little village square. A guard with a pike stands in the distance. Four cups are in the foreground, while one sits on a column behind the boy. It is a picture fit for Norman Rockwell.

In Thoth, we are shown six golden lotuses pouring water into six cups. An ornate, symmetrical network of pipe-like stems hold the flowers aloft. A blue sea lightly churns below, and a clear sky is above. 

In Marseille, a flower divides the card into two halves, each containing three cups to create a perfect mirror image. Qabalistically, this is the Beauty of the Queen, taking pleasure in perfectly balanced things.

It is a great rarity to get exactly what we want, but ‘Pleasure’ shows us it is possible. Together with the Five of Cups, ‘Disappointment’, and the Seven of Cups, ‘Debauch”, we are given the image of too little, too much, and just right.

In this way, the Six of Cups is like Goldilocks - just right. We are prone to desire too much of a good thing, turning it to dangerous excess. Or, there is not enough of it to satiate our needs, and we are left wanting. Pleasure is getting exactly the right amount of what we want, and achieving balance. 

This is a glass that is neither half empty or half full, it is just a good glass.

As Scorpio, this card directly relates to material pleasures, especially drink and sex. Both of these can cause a great deal of problems, as seen in the 5 and 7 of cups, but in the 6 they are just enough. It is the pure release of orgasm. The symmetry shown in Marseilles and Thoth really paint the picture by way of mirror images, and harmony. 

In the words of William Blake “No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.” When we follow our body and nature, we do not restrict all pleasure or over indulge. 

The Psychoanalysts understood well that our neuroses quickly do away with balance, leading us to  either take all that we can, or reject all.

Wilhelm Reich describes it well in “Listen, Little Man!”:

‘You remember the Swedish institution of smorgasbord. Many foods and delicacies are spread out, and it is left to the guest what and how much he will take. To you this institution was new and alien; you could not understand how one can trust human decency. You told me with malicious joy how you did not eat all day in order to gorge yourself on the free food in the evening.’

Let us listen to our bodies and take only what we will.

When pulling this card we can expect things to be quite good: a dream may come true, we may find our feelings mirrored, and our desires met. Let us then keep our hearts balanced and pure, so we don’t take too much of a good thing.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

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Sourcing Gesture Pt. 2

Aby Warburg, Mnemosyne Picture Atlas. 1929.

Find part one of ‘Sourcing Gesture’ here.

Isabelle Bucklow March 6, 2025

Through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the German polymath Aby Warburg devoted his intellectual life to uncovering a ‘psychology of human expression’. His final and unfinished project, a visual Mnemosyne Atlas (1927-29), showcases certain gestures that persist from Western antiquity to modern advertisements. Warburg forged formal connections across media to trace the migration of a certain pose from a tomb carving, to a Roman statue, to a 1920s fashion campaign. But it would be remiss to assume this was a historical retracing back to an original source, imitated and gradually adapted until it reaches its current form. Instead, this project uncovered not an original but recurrences: ‘Original worlds exist only as survivals, that is to say, impure, masked, contaminated, transformed, antithetically reversed’.¹ Specifically, Warburg was interested in recurring expressions of heightened emotion/motion, leading him to develop the term pathosformel (pathos formula). Pathos, an individual emotive ephemeral event, is transformed into a generic and permanent symbolic expression (enacted corporeally). 

Warburg was concerned with the emotional undercurrents of social memory that informed how past gestures are read in the present. Although gestures might once have claimed stable meanings through time, Warburg noted pathosformel can also be ‘aesthetically reversed’, that is, they both contain and can be flipped into their opposite; joyous laughter becoming sinister mania. The same gesture is capable of communicating different things and Warburg termed this oscillation between opposing forces an ‘energetic inversion’. Thus, for Warburg, gestures are primarily signs of ‘affective intensity and energy’. An affective (and affecting)energy is stored in, released, received and re-enacted through gestures; in short, gestures move (corporeally, temporally) and we are moved by them (but to what psychological ‘affect’ we cannot always be sure for that same gesture, as we have seen, can tip into its opposite meaning).

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“Gesture's fragile, fluctuating energy is displaced; a process akin to pinning a butterfly to a mount, which tells you nothing of what a butterfly actually is.” 

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Returning to Atkins and Zultanski’s Sorcerer, the set was delineated by three cast-iron radiators. The script’s Appendix A states the radiators must be ‘plumbed into the central heating of the theatre […] on and quite warm’.² It is also acknowledged the audience might never notice the radiators are on. There is however a moment in the play when Peter leans in to adjust one of the radiators, ‘his microphone picks up the sound of water moving in it’. For a play propelled by gesture – through ticks and gestural skits (outlined in the stage directions) – and where the use of these gestures conjures a sense of psychological unease, it feels apt to note the explicit circulation of energy in the space as carrying something of a Warburgian charge; Where else does gesture emerge from but the heady concoction of affective intensity and energy. 

If gestures have long been defined by a simultaneous charge between kinetic energy and stored energy, today gestures are also stored in energy intensive data centres. The online database Imagenet contains a wealth of gesticulations categorised under the branch: natural object> body> human body>; and there are datasets based on a collection of European early modern paintings, from which hand gestures are ‘extracted using human pose estimation (HPE) methods’. Some datasets are open source while others are bought and sold or generated in-house to train all sorts of AI tools. The first that comes to mind is the gesture recognition feature in Google Meet video calls. Give a thumbs up and an emoji will appear on screen, raise your hand and the host will be notified you have something to say, of course this function is rife with misrecognition, outbursts of emojis and unintended affects. In such datasets the cataloguing may evoke Warburg’s atlas by bringing together disparate sources that share a formal similitude, but the binary order imposed by these datasets flattens and de-contextualises gestures, fixing them to a preordained affect. Stored here, gesture's fragile, fluctuating energy is displaced; a process akin to pinning a butterfly to a mount, which tells you nothing of what a butterfly actually is. 

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¹  Georges Didi Huberman, The Surviving Image (Penn State University Press, 2016) p. 161
² Ed Atkins, Steven Zultanski, Sorcerer (Prototype, 2023) p. 106

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Isabelle Bucklow is a London-based writer, researcher and editor. She is the co-founding editor of motor dance journal. 

Sourcing Gesture Pt. 1

Antonin Artaud, 1948. Le Cuziat.

Isabelle Bucklow March 4, 2025

Some months have passed since we last spoke about gesture, and we are no closer to conclusivity. I'll begin with simple observations:: we all gesture everyday, and those gestures are, more often than not, seen and understood by others. Gestures signify and transmit information and so serve a communicative function. This communicative status has led many to neatly package gesture as a language of sorts, that is, decodable, meaningful, shareable and universal. We’ve explored in earlier writings that gestures accompany and provide emphasis to language, as in persuasive speeches of antiquity to present day. But this understanding can  impose hierarchy, establishing language as the source-code that deciphers the gestures. Here, however, I am interested in those gestures that disrupt semantic meaning, that do not rely on a specific word or stable concept, but instead subtly shift according to their affective intensity, revealing the invisible according to their own symbolic logic. 

The French dramatist Antoin Artaud’s impassioned 1938 manifestos for the stage, The Theatre and its Double, speaks of the actor’s need ‘to break through language in order to touch life’, clarifying ‘it must be understood that we are not referring to life as we know it from the surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.’¹ Gesture exists  in this precarious point between fragile fluctuating life-force and corporealized form. Writing some years later, British theatre director Peter Brook referenced Artaud, adding the actor’s need to find a ‘form which would be a container and reflector of his impulses [...] We encouraged the actors to see themselves not only as improvisers, lending themselves blindly to their inner impulses, but as artists responsible for searching and selecting amongst form, so that a gesture or a cry becomes like an object that he discovers and even remoulds.’²

If we are to loosen language’s hold on gesture, then we can  more wholly consider the forms or gestures an actor selects, and where they came from. For it seems that when you are really into something or someone and your interest is piqued, you’ll quickly get an itch to know the fabled ‘origin story’ and isolate the determining factor that set it all in motion. In anticipation, we are not going to find it.

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“Just as a child imitates the actions successfully executed by those with authority over them, the gesture is borrowed from without and performed from within.”

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One approach would be to turn to evolution. We have previously considered Andre Leroi-Gourhan’s Gesture and Speech where he traces ‘The essential traits of human technical gesticulation’ back to the action of grasping. Leroi-Gourhan, like us, was interested in the gestures of human hands, even more so in the ‘mesh of techniques’ that humans inhabit and from which a grasping hand emerges. But dwelling on the prehistoric conditions that produced a certain gesture feels a lot like asking someone their personal history only for them to begin at early bipedal apes roaming the Miocene epoch. So, by way of narrative license, let’s jump from Leroi-Gourhan’s paleoanthropology to a contemporary avant-garde theatre-script: Ed Atkins and Steven Zultanski’s Sorcerer, 2023, in which three protagonists, drinking beer in their friend's apartment, are discussing how they go about putting on and taking off a jumper:

‘I put my arms through like this–
(makes motion, puts her hands through the air like a long glove or like putting hands in a cow, one after the other.)
And then I do–
(swooping motion, ducks head in, almost like going under a short doorway) 
[...]
I do an awkward mixture of both. I put my head and one arm though at the same time–
(makes moton, half-lifts one arm and tilts head, like putting head through and checking on the other side of a portal)’³ 

Described are idiosyncratic combinations of gestures that achieve the same thing, as well as stage directions for gestures that employ metaphor to describe one gesture by way of a different gesture. 

One protagonist observes:

‘There’s a way people do it in the movies, which I copied as a kid: you put your arms in first– 
(puts arms in.) 
And you go–
(pulls over head in a movie way)’

In a seminal, anthropological text on gesture from 1934, Techniques of the Body, Marcel Mauss noted how movies influenced gestures. When lying in a hospital in New York he wondered, ‘where previously I had seen girls walking as my nurses walked…At last I realised that it was at the cinema…Returning to France, I noticed how common this gait was […] American walking fashions had begun to arrive over here, thanks to the cinema… ’.⁴

The walking fashions described by Mauss are not motivated by biological necessity but adopted on the basis of aesthetics, taste and an imitative desire to be like stars in the movies. It is through this  opening that we can pursue symbolic gestures that arise from what Mauss terms ‘prestigious imitation’: Just as a child imitates the actions successfully executed by those with authority over them, the gesture is in this sense borrowed from without and performed from within. And so, at the turn of the century you could say many common gestures borrowed their iconography from what was performed in the cinema. But, where then did the cinema source its gestures if not from gestures common to life? 

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¹  Antoin Artuad, The Theatre and Its Double, (Grove Press, 1958 [1938]) Preface, p. 13
² Peter Brook, The Empty Space (Penguin, 1968), p. 58
³ Ed Atkins, Steven Zultanski, Sorcerer (Prototype, 2023) p. 17-18 
⁴ Marcel Mauss, Techniques of the Body ([1934] 1973), Economy and Society, 2(2), p. 72

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Isabelle Bucklow is a London-based writer, researcher and editor. She is the co-founding editor of motor dance journal. 

The King and Prince of Cups (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  King of Cups, Prince of Cups
Number: 1 or 3
Astrology: Water or Scorpio
Qabalah: Yod of He or Vau of He

Chris Gabriel March 1, 2025

The King of Cups is the ruler of the suit. He sits imperiously on a throne, cup in hand. He is the powerful sea, and the paradoxical strength of water. As chapter 78 of the Tao Te Ching says: 

Nothing in all beneath heaven is so soft and weak as water.
And yet, for conquering the hard and strong, nothing succeeds like water.
And nothing can change it:
weak overcoming strong,
soft overcoming hard.

This is the way of the King of Cups.

In Rider, we find a fair faced King wearing an ornate crown with golden filigree, a greenish gold cape with red scallops, and a blue robe. A fish pendant hangs around his neck and his shoes are scaly. One hand holds the Cup and the other, a scepter. Behind him the sea churns, a ship sails, and a fish swims.

In Thoth, we have the equivalent Prince. He is nude but for his helmet, which bears an Eagle. He stares into his cup which holds a serpent. In his hand is a downward lotus. His fluid chariot is drawn by a great eagle. Waves splash behind him.

In Marseille, we have the simplest image. An old grey bearded king with a large crown under which the flaps of his hat rise up. He is dressed as the other kings, but his cup is the largest.

We can interpret, in this card, the classic 1950’s image of the father, home from a long day of work and having a drink, and all of the negative connotations that may come with this.

In the phrase “Drink like a fish”, you will see the ill dignified form of the King. The solution is the serpent in the cup: St. John’s Chalice.

St. John is given a cup of poison wine. He blesses it, a serpent rises out, and he drinks it just fine. This is the highest form of the Scorpionic Water: a medicinal poison. Harmful substance distilled into a curative form. The King of Cups understands well the maxim of Paracelsus: dosis sola facit venenum. The dose makes the poison.

While the King of Wands will act on aggression and make war with the world, the King of Cups will, like water, slowly erode the foundations of his enemies. He must beware, however, lest his waters dissolve himself. This is shown perfectly in the Fisher King of Arthurian legend who, wounded again and again by the bleeding, poisonous Lance of Longinus (the Lance that wounded Christ on the Cross) and by his own poisoning, poisons his land to become a waste. The only cure is in the Holy Grail.

When pulling this card we may be met with an older, wiser man who has mastered his emotions, and is filled with love. Alternatively, they may be troubled, with a heavy heart. We may also be called on to use our love and power. Emotion is extremely powerful, be sure it sweetens and heals rather than spoil and poison those around us.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS

Karmic Escape Velocity

George Sturdy and Solomon Young, 1869.

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Molly Hankins February 27, 2025

The Law of One is based on a series of channeled conversations between physics professor Don Elkins and Ra, the Egyptian sun god. It posits that forgiveness is the path required to exit the wheel of karma. Forgiveness of self and others corrects the imbalance of ‘energetic momentum’ between giver and receiver, described as karma in The Law of One. The momentum is said to take on a circular pattern of repetition that can only be disrupted by complete forgiveness. 

Ra is a 2.6 billion year old, sixth-dimensional social-memory complex. They chose a physicist as the preferred channel for The Law of One’s teaching because of Elkin’s advanced understanding of certain physics-based concepts, namely inertia. In physics, inertia is a property that allows matter to exist in a single state unless changed by an external force. Humans caught in the cycle of karma, unable to understand the true purpose of forgiveness, risk never being able to achieve the escape velocity necessary to get out.

Ra, and many other higher dimensional beings who’ve taken an interest in human life, acts as that external force by giving us the information necessary to overcome karmic inertia. From our limited perspective, we can’t understand the utility of forgiveness, particularly radical forgiveness for acts of violence and destruction that are deemed unforgivable. Without being able to understand why it’s useful to forgive, and how forgiveness of self is inherent in true forgiveness of another, we’re unmotivated to do so. 

Rather than repeating the lessons created by imbalance, forgiveness allows us to integrate sustainable balance in how we give and receive energy. We benefit from understanding how the physical and emotional experience of balanced energy exchange feels and the gain intellectual experience of the lesson learned. Not only does conscious forgiveness prevent us from making the same mistakes and repeating lessons, it releases us from negativity by allowing us to see others as part of ourselves.

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“Achieving peace of heart and mind stronger than rational thinking is what life feels like off the karmic wheel.”

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As suggested by the name, the premise of The Law of One is that we are all one.  Specifically that all of life is part of the original thought of The Creator, and as we all contain the initial  creative spark from one thought, we are all reflections of The Creator. By recognizing ourselves in the reflection of another, we can more easily forgive. Forgiveness is not about condoning a transgression or trying to make it right, it’s about releasing any negative emotions to free ourselves. 

Once forgiven, the transgression no longer has power over us, even if the pain caused by it still remains. This frees us to begin healing, and the Bible refers to that healed state of being as “a peace that passes all understanding” (Phillippians 4:7). Achieving peace of heart and mind stronger than rational thinking is what life feels like off the karmic wheel. While the inevitability of human drama will pull us back on,we can always forgive and hit karmic escape velocity once more. 

A passage from The Law of One uses the metaphor of a poker game to describe the role of forgiveness as a tool to ‘win’ the game of life: “I am Ra. Let us re-examine this metaphor and multiply it into the longest poker game you can imagine, a lifetime. The cards are love, dislike, limitation, unhappiness, pleasure, etc. They are dealt and re-dealt and re-dealt continuously. You may, during this incarnation begin — and we stress begin — to know your own cards. You may begin to find the love within you. You may begin to balance your pleasure, your limitations, etc. However, your only indication of other-selves’ cards is to look into the eyes.

“You cannot remember your hand, their hands, perhaps even the rules of this game. This game can only be won by those who lose their cards in the melting influence of love; can only be won by those who lay their pleasures, their limitations, their all upon the table face up and say inwardly: ‘All, all of you players, each other-self, whatever your hand, I love you.’ This is the game: to know, to accept, to forgive, to balance, and to open the self in love.”

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Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.

Wheel of Fortune (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  Wheel of Fortune
Number: X
Astrology: Jupiter
Qabalah: Kaph, the Palm

Chris Gabriel February 22, 2025

In the Wheel of Fortune, we find one of the greatest mysteries in the deck. It is the endless flux of our lives and the universe encapsulated in a single image. Understanding this card will allow us to grasp the cosmology of tarot and divination.

In Rider, we find a wheel in the middle of a blue sky. The Cross is its center, and around it are the symbols of Salt, Sulphur, Mercury, and Aquarius. On the rim is the Tetragrammaton and TARO, serving duall

purpose as an anagram of ROTA, or Wheel. Atop the Wheel we have a Sphinx bearing a sword. A snake falls down its left side, and Hermanubis flies up from below. At the corners are the four Cherubs, winged and reading in their clouds.

In Thoth, there are vibrant purples and golds - the colors of the divine. In the center is a ten spoked wheel. Riding the wheel are the Sphinx who sits above, Apophis or Typhon falling down, and a monkey climbing up. The background is a violet spiral marred by the lightning bolts, which descend from the stars above.

In Marseille, we are shown a more material wheel sat upon a base. It has six spokes. Along the wheel are three monkeys: the one atop is crowned, winged and bearing a sword, to the left one falls and the other rises on the right.

What is the Wheel of Fortune? What is the meaning of this trinity?

Let us look to Jupiter, the God of this card. Jupiter, like the other Gods of the ancient pantheon, is very human. As the king of the Gods he rewards those who please him and punishes those who upset him, and his whims are very fickle. This is the nature of life and luck, where our conditions change extremely easily and with no warning. We find ourselves on top of the world, and then we are plummeted down again, and must fight our way back up. This is an eternal struggle.

This card argues there is a logic to this cycle of change. It can be put concisely into a magic word: IAO.

Isis
Apophis
Osiris

In these three characters, we are given the narrative cycle for life. Isis and Osiris are married, Apophis/Seth kills Osiris and chops him up, then Isis restores and mummifies him.

Isis is the mother and healer, Apophis the son and destroyer, and Osiris, the father and the destroyed. 

This is the essential magickal trinity of life, death, and rebirth, and the alchemical trinity of Salt, Sulphur, and Mercury. 

I see this pattern very clearly in children’s games: Rock, Paper, Scissor and Kiss, Marry, Kill.

Isis: Salt: Rock: Kiss
Apophis: Sulphur: Scissor: Kill
Osiris: Mercury: Paper: Marry

The trinity is even mirrored in language with the Ablaut Reduplication. Consider: Tic-Tac-Toe, hip-hop, splish splash. If we reverse these, Toe-Tac-Tic, hop-hip, splash splish, we end up with a very awkward phrase, we naturally speak in the IAO pattern.

This may seem silly, but it is through this exact pattern that we can grasp our ever changing conditions in life.

The Wheel of Fortune itself is still used extensively in games: from game shows, various wheel based auctions to, of course, roulette. In all of these, we see a very immediate form of luck and changing fortunes.

When we pull this card, we are seeing a coming change to our situation.  Luck and fate will come into play. Whether or not this will bring us higher or drop us farther can only be indicated by the other cards. For example, if a card like “Failure” precedes Fortune things may be ready to improve. 

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS

A Start

Knot, 1947. Anni Albers.

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Anni Albers was one of the key figures of 20th Century Art. Joining Walter Gropius’ Bauhaus School as an untrained, but deeply passionate, novice, she came to create a new language of textiles, a radical theory of color, and an understanding of pattern and form that would change the course of art history. Her career extended long beyond the Bauhaus, blurring the lines between craft and fine art, teaching at Black Mountain College and becoming the first textile artist to have a solo show at the MOMA. In this essay, written in 1947 but not published until Gropius’ death in 1969, she succinctly captures the feeling of a radical place that offered new promises and the development that this philosophy encouraged in all of its practitioners.

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Anni Albers, February 20, 2025

I came to the Bauhaus at its “period of the saints.” Many around me, a lost and bewildered newcomer, were, oddly enough, in white—not a professional white or the white of summer—here it was the vestal white. But far from being awesome, the baggy white dresses and saggy white suits had rather a familiar homemade touch. Clearly this was a place of groping and fumbling, of experimenting and taking chances. 

Outside was the world I came from, a tangle of hopelessness, of undirected energy, of cross-purposes. Inside, here, at the Bauhaus after some two years of its existence, was confusion, too, I thought, but certainly no hopelessness or aimlessness, rather exuberance with its own land of confusion. But there seemed to be a gathering of efforts for some dim and distant purpose, a purpose I could not yet see and which, I feared might remain perhaps forever hidden from me. 

Then Gropius spoke. It was a welcome to us, the new students. He spoke, I believe, of the ideas that brought the Bauhaus into being and of the work ahead. I do not recall anything of the actual phrasing or even of the thoughts expressed. What is still present in my mind is the experience of a gradual condensation, during that hour he spoke, of our hoping and musing into a focal point, into a meaning, into some distant, stable objective. It was an experience that meant purpose and direction from there on. 

This was about twenty-six years ago. 

Last year some young friends of mine told me of the opening speech Gropius gave at Harvard at the beginning of the new term. What made it significant to them was the experience of realizing sense and meaning in a confused world, now as then—the same experience of finding one’s bearing.

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Anni Albers (1899 –1994) was a German born, Jewish artist, writer, teacher, and printmaker. Alongside her husband Josef Albers, she helped redefine color theory in the 20th century, and was the leading voice textile art, ushering in craft practices into fine art.

Wagnerian Painting

Portrait of Téoder de Wyzewa, Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1989.

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Téodor de Wyzewa was Polish born theorist, writer, and critic who in the last decades of the 19th century became amongst the most celebrated minds in Paris, contributing a philosophical grounding to the Symbolist movement. This essay, first published in 1885 of which a section is reproduced here, anticipates the development of abstract art and espouses a number of formalist theories upon which many 20th century movements would be built. Key amongst them is the idea that art is the route to access 'the higher reality of a disinterested life'.

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Téodor de Wyzewa, February 18, 2025

The world we live in, which we declare real, is purely a creation of our soul. The mind cannot go outside itself; and the things it believes to be outside it are only its ideas. To see, to hear, is to create appearances within oneself, thus to create Life. But the baneful habit of creating the same things has made us lose the joyful awareness of our own creative power; we thought real the dreams we gave birth to, and also this inner self, limited by objects and subject to them, that we had conceived. 

Consequently, we have been the slaves of the world, and the sight of this world, where we engaged our interests, has since ceased to give us pleasure. And the Life which we had created - created in order to give us the joy of creating - has lost its original character. It is necessary therefore to recreate it; one must build, over and above this world of defiled, habitual appearances, the holy world of a better life: better, because we can make it intentionally, and know that we make it. This is the very business of Art.

But from where will the artist take the elements of this higher life? He can find them nowhere unless in our normal life, in what we call Reality. This is to say that the artist, and those to whom he wants to communicate the life that he creates, cannot, as a result of what their minds normally do, erect a living work of art in their souls, unless it presents itself to them under the very conditions in which they have always perceived life.

And so, this explains the necessity of realism in art; not a realism which transcribes the vain appearances that we think real, with no other end, but an artistic realism, which tears these appearances from the false reality of interest where we perceive them, in order to transport them into the higher reality of a disinterested life. We see around us trees, animals, men, and we assume they are living; but, seen in this way, they are only vain shadows which drape the shifting decor of our vision. They will only live when the artist, in whose special soul they have a more intense reality, inspires them with this higher life - recreates them before us.

As minds become more refined, Art requires increasingly more diverse methods than those operative in reality to suggest the same life. Thus, a polychrome statue resembles the models it has reproduced too much in its material.  

And so again, a drama, when read, will appear more alive to delicate souls than the same drama played in a theatre by living actors. In order to preserve the feelings of art, we have an ever more urgent need that the impressions of life should be given us, in the life of art, by means other than those of real life.

Painting responds to this need. The means it employs to suggest sensations to us artistically differ entirely from the means employed by reality. For the colours and lines in a. painting are not reproductions of the quite different lines and colours which are in reality; they are only conventional signs which have become equivalent to what they signify as the result of an association between the images. But they are just as different, finally, from real colours and lines as a word differs from a thought, or a musical note from the emotion it suggests.

A few outstanding masters, their eyes endowed with an almost pathological sensitivity, accustomed artists to seeing objects surrounded by the air that bathed them. From that moment, the vocabulary of painting became modified; new signs were introduced which created new sensations.

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“Marrying them in such a way as to produce in us, by their free play, a complete impression comparable to that of a symphony.”

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Painting, Literature and Music each suggest just one mode of life. But life exists in the intimate union of these three modes. Soon, their art must have appeared to painters, as it did to writers, to be insufficient to create the whole life which they conceived. Therefore, long ago they wanted to expand the possibilities of their art, to employ it to reconstitute diverse forms of life. For example, writers noticed that words, over and above their precise conceptual meaning, had assumed special resonances for the ear, and that syllables had become musical tones, as had the rhythms of the sentence. Then, they attempted a new art: poetry. They employed words no longer for their conceptual value, but as sonorous syllables evoking emotion in the soul by means of their harmonious alliance.

The same need to translate the life of the emotions with the means of their art very quickly drove painters to go beyond the limits of reproducing their sensations in a wholly realistic way.

And a new kind of painting was attempted by them, one which a happy agreement of circumstances made possible. This is to say that colours and lines themselves, like words, had also, through familiarity, assumed for souls an emotional value independent of the objects they represented. We had always seen a certain facial expression, a certain colour or certain contours accompany the objects which inspired us with such-and-such an emotion. And behold, these colours, these contours and these expressions, are linked with these emotions in our soul; they have become not just signs of our visual sensations, but signs of our emotions also; they have become, by the accident of this connection, emotional signs, like the syllables of poetry or musical notes. And so, certain painters were able to leave behind the original purpose of Art, which was to suggest the precise sensations of sight. They employed colours and lines for purely symphonic compositional ends, with no regard for the direct depiction of a visual object. And nowadays, colours and lines - the means of painting - can be used in two quite different kinds of painting: the one sensuous and descriptive which recreates exactly how objects look; the other emotional and musical, neglectful of treating the objects these colours and lines represent, using them only as signs of emotion, marrying them in such a way as to produce in us, by their free play, a complete impression comparable to that of a symphony.

Therefore, emotional painting, as well as descriptive painting, has a legitimate right to exist, and possesses the value of an art which is equally precious. Its first master was the poetic Leonardo da Vinci. He gave us the emotion of lascivious terror through the mystery of perverse and supernatural expressions. Later, Peter Paul Rubens created the most intense symphonies of colour. Whereas with Rembrandt, we find a supernatural play of chiaroscuro which creates an emotion which is at once more troubled and more restrained. Afterwards, Watteau translated elegant melancholy: he devoted the delightful grace of his drawings to light-hearted and sweet poems which seem to recall certain andante movements in Mozart's quartets. And in turn, Delacroix was the lyricist of violent passions, a little vulgar in their romanticism.

All these masters have proved that painting could equally well be descriptive of real sensations, or suggestive of real emotions. Only, they have intuited that these two possibilities demanded two quite different kinds of art, and that they had to choose one or the other, following their natural inclinations. Today, the necessity of making a choice is even more vital.

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Téodor de Wyzewa (1862-1914) was a Polish writer, critic, and translator who emigrated to France in 1869. He was a leading exponent of the Symbolist movement.

Four of Cups (Tarot Triptych)

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Name:  Luxury, the Four of Cups
Number: 4
Astrology: Moon in Cancer
Qabalah: Chesed of He

Chris Gabriel February 15, 2025

The Four of Cups is comfort, familial love, and emotion. We are given three very different interpretations of this same force in each deck.

In Rider, we see a youth no longer satisfied by material pleasure. He sits like an ascetic beneath a tree, rejecting the phantom hand that holds out a cup for him. He is like the Buddha, denouncing the world for the sake of what’s higher.

In Thoth, we see four golden cups and elaborate pipe-like roots leading to the Lotus, which is pouring down water into the cups. The clouds in the sky are the silvery gray of the Moon, and the wavey Sea is the light blue of Cancer.

In Marseille, we have four cups and a pillar-like flower. Qabalistically, the card is the Mercy of the Queen. This is the love and kindness of the mother.

A good upbringing with a loving family leads to, at its best, an individual who is secure and can withstand the tumult of the world. Often, however, people lose themselves within the comfort of home, reject the external, and remain in arrested development.

In Rider we see a boy who is becoming unhappy with his comfort. He may be preparing to grow, to expand and transform. When Crowley described his Thoth card, he gave it a subtitle: “The Seeds of Decay”, which lay in the fruits of pleasure.  

This is not to say comfort is always bad; there is a time and a need for it. Childhood may be best spent in comfort, butwhen childhood ends, the comfort must be abandoned and the enchanted circle of the mother broken.

If this fails to occur, one will remain in an illusion, a daydream, an oedipal hologram meant to keep an individual from individuating. This is the struggle of the card's astrological placement: the Moon in Cancer, even though it is in the sign of its rulership, is prone to delusions and extreme sensitivity to the world around it. 

The card is notably featured in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. The Kid finds it in a destroyed house and then pulls it while having his fortune read:

He took one. He'd not seen such cards before, yet the one he held seemed familiar to him. He turned it upside down and regarded it and he turned it back. The juggler took the boy's hand in his own and turned the card so he could see. Then he took the card and held it up. 

Cuatro de copas, he called out. 

The woman raised her head. She looked like a blindfold mannequin raised awake by a string. 

Cuatro de copas, she said. She moved her shoulders. The wind went among her garments and her hair.

When we pull the Four of Cups we can expect a slow and comfortable energy to be at play, we don’t need to worry. Nothing is falling apart, for now.

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Chris Gabriel is a twenty four year old wizard and poet who runs the YouTube channel MemeAnalysis.

CHANNEL, SOCIAL, READINGS

Egyptian Tantra and the Ankh

Sphinx Mystagoga, 1676. Athanasius Kircher.

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Molly Hankins February 13, 2025

In Drunvalo Melchizedek’s Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life book series, he shares channeled material from Thoth, also known as Hermes Trismegistus. The second book outlines the basics of Egyptian tantra practice, explaining that recycling orgasmic energy is the key to eternal life. This is a vast departure from many other tantra traditions, but makes sense - human life begins with an orgasm.

From an energetic standpoint,  most orgasms are akin to discharging a battery into a ground wire - the energy dissipates and is gone from the battery forever. “This is what all the world’s tantric systems I am aware of believe,” he writes, “That orgasm brings one a little closer to death because a person loses his or her life-force energy in the orgasm.”

For the Egyptians, controlling sexual currents was more important than controlling sexual release. According to Thoth / Hermes, the Egyptian tantric system is unique as it recycles sexual currents as a source of infinite life-force energy. Engaging in this practice, according to the sex magic schools of Isis (partnered) and Horus (solo), can create the conditions allowing for eternal youth and life.  

Overlay the Egyptian ankh next to Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vetruvian Man, and the meeting point of his arms is the energetic starting point at which we’re directing the sexual current in our bodies - the heart chakra. The practice  is that of pushing energy out from our backs.allowing it to loop back around the top of our head, and re-enter the front of the heart chakra to form the ankh shape. 

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“Immortality is not living forever in our current form - it’s learning to work with the energy that  animate our physical bodies, to the point where we don’t age.”

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The goal of Egyptian tantra is to let sexual energy build up the spine, and then move it towards the heart chakra as you’re approaching orgasm. This practice can be used to simply build vital energy or directed towards an intention, and can be performed solo or with a partner. The instructions, as Drunvalo, explains are: .

1. Allow the sexual energy to rise up your spine and collect at the top of the heart chakra.

2. The moment you feel orgasm is imminent, fill your lungs 9/10ths of the way full and hold.

3. At the moment of orgasm, push the energy out the back of the heart chakra at a 90 degree angle relative to your spine, allowing the energy to continue in the round shape like the top of ankh, and recycle it back into your body. 

4. The instant the sexual current energy makes contact with the front of the body, draw in the rest of your breath so your lungs are full, this completes the ankh before exhaling.

To illustrate the power of this practice, Drunvalo uses the example of a standard tuning fork. Once struck, it will vibrate for a certain amount of time upon being struck. A tuning fork with the ankh shape on top, however, will vibrate for a much longer period of time because the energy is being recycled back into itself rather than immediately dissipating. 

Egyptian tantra posits that recycling our life-force energy keeps us vibrant in form for longer. Immortality, Drunvalo believes, is not living forever in our current form - it’s learning to work with the energy that  animate our physical bodies, to the point where we don’t age. The goal of this practice is to evolve to a point where we can live as long as we wish in a healthy, vibrant body then choose when and how to transition. 

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Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.