So we sail through the risky 2KY transition without a hitch into the new millennium. Finding ourselves alive in a year made up of mostly zeros certainly feels like a fresh start. There is a sense that the Apocalypse is over and done with. Not that the planet is out of danger of course but the biblical idea of a wrathful God may have run its course. Hallelujah!

Feel quite a bit lighter actually. Can indeed just be that original me who in the last century took on Crowley’s karma as a vehicle for initiation and by parking the literary output from his endeavours out in cyber land, can now feel good about letting go of it.

First email of the year is a pleasing one: Subject ‘Thelema’, ‘Cool site is all I can say:)’.

A nice and sane compliment which can’t be said about the message a few weeks later: Someone tells me very angrily that it is he who is the Moonchild. Has a website to prove it which is not more than a little bio and a picture of him holding a guitar, looking out at the world with the piercing stare of our procreator. Am not too surprised to be faced with one of the many loonies who are also deeply into him but it still feels freaky. 

Fortunately there is plenty of sanity out there. Great to catch up with the Chaos Magicians. Have been aware of their existence but was blissfully ignorant of their theories. They could well have – as with a premature discovery of R.A.W.’s ‘Cosmic Trigger’ – taken the wind out of my sails. They have a pretty good handle on the old A.C. and by simplifying the rituals they have brought him into the present already. Peter Carroll’s words are a song indeed and Phil Hine, writing about possession as a magick tool, points out Crowley’s openness to possession by the back door. Run into a site called babalon.net which has a remark on the ‘Crowley Reincarnated Club’. You’d say this would embarrass me but it doesn’t. Am actually stoked. It makes me feel less alone in the enterprise. It’s a matter of distinguishing the mad ones from the sane. Although for those dabbling in the occult it has probably to be a bit of both. To master our madness it helps to acknowledge a kind of pathology in our preoccupations in order to maintain the necessary distance between ourselves and our subject. Confronted with the idea of competing Moonchildren, better get on with it. Dig out the notebooks from my days in Amsterdam and start work on bringing my trip over there out in digits.

*

It feels pretty good to be setting out on a new leg of the journey from the comfort of my own home, easing myself in the headspace of looking out on the foliage outside while focussing on the inner landscape, sitting back on my funky verandah couch, the multi-coloured notebooks around me. Get into a rhythm of work in the field during the day with the reward of going on line at night for fun and diversion.

There is another email: “Catch u in the Nagual”, signed Kittycat.

A female warrior, one assumes. How appealing! Decide on a little flirtation:

“Quite enticing, a date in the Nagual. Any clues for recognising you?”

To be widening my exploration of what is out there in the cyber realm is a pleasure and an education. Moving from the mystical to the mainstream is no disappointment. It doesn’t take long to stumble across salon.com which a lot of media have been declaring ‘best of the web’ for years. Half the writers are women. It is made up of several parts: Literary Scene, Politics, Technology, News, Health, etc. Articles on sexuality fall under the heading of Health. Their sexpert writes about strapping on and fucking her boyfriend up the arse as a healing exercise. It looks like mainstream in cyber space is not quite the mainstream on planet-side.

And they have links of course. Like nerve.com, a ‘community of thoughtful hedonists’. More strap-on stories: “It opened up a whole new realm of intellectual and emotional sensations, not just physical ones, empowering rather than emasculating, etc.” This is what the hip internet is apparently mostly up to: Staking out new frontiers in the sexual evolution of humanity.

On the topic of swallowing however there is not much. It is still treated as a clean up rather than a celebration. It is seen as a pampering, submissive element that swallows rather than a ravenous one. Semen is still something to be disposed of. It is the one topic that seems to be unmentionable. Continue my travels through the delightful scarletletters.com on self love, through puckerup.com on anal sex for women and through powerotics on erotic power exchange, but there is no semen munch.

Hilariously, on one of the sites someone says that if the heterosexual identified male would relax the sphincter, be it with cock, dildo or cucumber, the world would look a whole lot better, describing it as looking like ‘a bit like Amsterdam’.

In the meantime, the sparsity of response to my cyber child is starting to make me wonder and in mid-March there is an email from AvatarSearch to inform me that the link to my site has been dead for weeks and that it has been removed from their search engine. Check witchvox.com and indeed also there, Moonchild has disappeared. The site has evidently been hacked. 

The bio of the dude with the piercing stare had told us that he was a Microsoft engineer. It was possibly if not probably him. Unless it is Big Brother himself. Strangely, it is liberating. Could never have made that decision myself but now that my outing has been taken out of the arena, it gives me time to catch up with the necessary technology before taking up my cyber stance again. And to step up the work to complete the writing. It is of some urgency to produce a hard copy of the whole saga so as to be standing on firmer – on saner – ground. 

Several months of rooting through the journal, sifting out the nuggets and digging up the meaning-making building blocks that create the structure. A picture emerges, giving the thrill of seeing my life manifest on the page instead of drifting about in a murky cauldron. Each page bringing a sense of growth as if the soul evolves along with the story line.

By the middle of the year the sketch is done. Now it is a matter of finding the words that will make it sing.

*

The Southern Cross University has an open day. It is in Lismore, which is not that far from home. To take on the world with my outrageous ideas it could well take more than learning a little h.t.m.l.

The campus is beautiful. Each one of the different Schools has its own scenic ambiance, tucked away within a magnificently gardened landscape, linked to one another by pretty pathways. The university library is huge and very inviting.

Had driven out there with the thought of studying I.T., to get more informed about ‘security’ issues, but when visiting the School of Arts it is like a homecoming. The modules on the different kinds of writing – essays, journalism, scriptwriting, multi-media – look extremely attractive. ‘Mature Age’ students are warmly welcomed. What a relevant way to reconnect with society in one of its most sensitive and sophisticated areas. Learning my way back into the mainstream.

By now it has become clear to me that my writing is so niche that it is not likely to be a block buster. Besides, it is still a work in progress and it is better off being evaluated by ‘peer review’ than be tarted up into a snazzy website to seduce ‘the market’, even if it is to free mankind. It just means taking off the mantle of the Logos of the Aeon, putting the hero’s journey on hold and seeing my Crowley possession as an academic project, with the S.C.U. as my coven.

And then, who to run into but my Poet Rocker, just back from Queensland checking out the same thing. This is no ordinary coincidence. Lismore is a hobnob of queer, the university is utterly feminist. Here is the one male of my acquaintance that could help me put a dent in my stubborn heterosexuality. If there was any doubt about enrolling, it is now sealed.

Great to be catching up, especially in the context of both becoming students. Since the sharing of his wife we have been very comfortable with one another, able to share our most intimate thoughts. But as for sharing our bodies there is still a big gap between ‘real’ and fantasy life. When in his actual vicinity, imagining a sexual romp is still a hard thing to do. What kind of queer is that? 

Tease him nevertheless: “We could get a house together.”

To which his witty reply: “And wear the same clothes.”

Have the rest of the year to round off the writing, get a hardcopy under my belt and the refurbished website on CD. Solidifying the past before taking the plunge.

The induction into the School of Arts is a blast. There is a truly inspirational welcome by the Head of School followed by a lovely get-together. With the wine flowing freely, have a marvellous time connecting with my teachers-to-be, making some favourable impressions, smoothing the way for an easy-going knowledge transfer. Am the last one to leave.

It takes a few trips to Lismore to get organised, making the shift from being Providence’s Plaything to a slave of discipline, finding a room, making time for study.

Unbelievably, when in the Uni bookshop to buy the prescribed study books, passing the shelf with ‘new releases’, there is Aleister’s big bad shaven head with a transparent overlay of goat features within a reversed pentagram staring me in the face: Do What Thou Wilt. A new and ‘definitive’ biography by an English academic. It’s not easy to find Crowley books in any bookshop, not even esoteric ones, such is the unsavoury reputation of the man. To bump into this book in this totally ‘straight’ environment is a pleasant surprise. It must have slipped in because it is written as someone’s PHD. Can’t not buy this of course, although there won’t be time to read it until the break between semesters.

*

My passion for the ‘knowledge factory’ is soon fully alight. There is a ‘core unit’ on Philosophy called Learning Technologies: From Ancient Greece to the present. Learn about Socrates warning against writing knowledge down, to stop it from falling into the wrong minds. About writing itself: ’From Papyrus to Cyberspace’, not only about the writer as recluse throughout the ages but about writing in secrecy even, hiding it until it is complete before letting it go out into the public!

It doesn’t take long to realise that my ‘moment’ – we are to select a moment in the history of knowledge production and elaborate on it – will have to be the birth of Postmodernism and its relation to the ingestion of mind altering substances. Was there at the time, after all. In Amsterdam. It was the effect of those substances that made us have to deal with having different perspectives on things, almost at once, within the one person, which easily leads to the idea that The Truth is something relative.

However, a quick search establishes the fact that within academic circles this link with psychedelics is emphaticly not being made, whether from unawareness, or unwillingness to deal with the illegality of it is not clear. Maybe it is a kind of European discretion verses the candour of my American philosophers Leary, Lilly and Wilson, who have no problem at all with having their ‘multiple selves’ philosophy revolve around the cataclysmic effects of the psychedelic 1960s. Is that to be my job: Bridging the Continental Intellectuals with the New World Acid Heads?

Between the two ‘Schools’ the model of Multiple Selves is fairly well established, so adding postmodernism’s ‘relativity of truth’ to quantum physics ‘observer-created universe’ gives me a strong enough foundation to not have to discard the Crowley trip altogether in favour of my newfangled academic one, but to just let me go ahead and delight in this ‘cycling through multiple selves’.

It is not going to be a leisurely ride though. What with the lectures, tutorials and rapid succession of assignments, it turns out to be a pretty hectic schedule. Have the odd run-in with my Poet Rocker who is doing Social Sciences and is also very busy:

“Don’t have time to play the guitar anymore.”

Fortunately my Bachelor of Arts program permits me to bring in some of my own art. At the time that Journalism’s ‘Feature Writing’ comes around, storms have caused some serious erosion along Byron Bay’s Belongil Beach and has thus given The Epicentre the required newsworthiness. It is rather motivating to be able to use bits and pieces of my Epicentre story for the feature assignment. For Scriptwriting my Nimbin Mardi Grass easily lends itself to be worked into a film script. How satisfying to bring some of my magick discreetly into the academic paradigm and have it scrutinised and marked.

In fact all modules have my full attention. It’s great to be writing essays and every essay gets my very best. As they are mostly well rewarded, it occurs to me that it is all part of my ‘body of work’ and well worth bringing them together into h.t.m.l., putting it out on C.D. and designing the cover as a Visual Arts project.

On top of all this, manage to keep the Journal going for the whole of the four years, so that the whole process of research and writing is documented in detail and in the context in which it all takes place. A context in which Queen Serendipity still reigns.

The semester break is for a dip back into the Old Crow by reading the new biography. As it behooves the academic, Lawrence Sutin starts with an introduction which comes straight to the point: The Elixer which is the sacrament in Aleister’s spiritual practices. He is not shy in dissecting the Beast by delving deep into his bisexuality and his troubles in coming to terms with his ‘deviancy’. Great to learn more of the puzzle that makes up the man’s character, a character that is certainly worth studying if nothing else.

Apparently, despite his bragging about the results of his sex magickal operations, he does admit somewhere that they were actually nil and that he had wanted to give up the role of Magus for a while. But he realised that there was nothing else for him to do. 

Particularly disarming is that when in his old age he takes on his son Ataturk, he turns into quite a proper father. In a letter to him at 12 years of age there is nothing about Thelema but he urges him to behave and write so as to impress himself favourably on others! And how endearing to hear about his last months as the darling of the Netherwood children.

Then the break is over and it is back into the grind. Finish year one of my academic career in a flurry of creativity. Come out of it with the feeling that it has given me a lot and has much enriched my abilities to perceive culture in its many manifestations.

*

While fully engrossed in the numerous tasks of a student and the needs for survival, the familiar flow of my cosmic assistance hadn’t stopped but had expressed itself by helping me out here and there in small matters of the mundane. But at the start of the new year John Lilly’s ‘Cosmic Coincidence Control Centre’ has something truly spectacular in store. Maybe because it is in such spectacular surroundings. 

My old mate Buko, the master builder who had given me the job of gardener at my arrival in Oz, has by now completed his own dream house: A fabulous hacienda near Tenterfield, a few hours inland from Byron Bay. Friends of his are big in the ‘doof scene’ and have organised a dance fest on his land, the Exodus Festival, which is to become a yearly pilgrimage for the Rave Culture for the next 6 years. There is no way around attending this. Quite a few of the old work mates have rocked up as well and we all set up camp together, with our former boss dropping by and keeping us informed of what is going on behind the scenes.

Amidst the many camp sites of the thousands of dreadlocked forest creatures decked out in their finest feathers, blending beautifully within the magical boulder-strewn landscape around Bald Rock, a theatre group has set up a bamboo structure holding up intriguing fabrics, announcing their performance of ‘The Choronzon Machine’. Choronzon of course being the Demon of Chaos with whom Aleister was in mortal battle in ‘The Vision and the Voice’, when ‘Skrying the Aethyrs’ in the Sahara dessert.

Needless to say that witnessing their ‘Metamorphic Ritual Theatre’ is more than a thrill. It is a leaf out of my own book. A series of acts in which two of the Tarot cards come alive at a time. What a treat! When The Fool, after trying to invoke the H.G.A. in vain with the arcane terminology gives up, he says: ”Let’s wing it.”

My kind of Fool. Next day when passing by their installation, the actor who plays him is at the gate and waves me in. Interestingly my name reminds him of ‘Guede’, the ‘Shiva’ of Voodoo. He is a lovely, brilliant young man with an exquisitely theatrical face. A quick but thorough introduction: His mingling of the Postmodern and the Occult meets my Moonchild. At my mention of my Crowley possession he nods towards one of the other actors who is asleep: 

“Have you met him? He has written a few Libers and is acknowledged by both Nema and Kenneth Grant as a Crowley incarnation.”

Wow! Something unbelievable has occurred. Am about to meet an official ‘Representative of the  Silver Star’ by complete coincidence. His name is Orryelle Defenistrate-Bascule.

When coming by later he is awake and we sit down together. Radically pierced and severely tattood he is about the wildest looking dude at the Festival yet he is exceptionally warm and has a beautiful twinkle in his gentle eyes, in which the mixture of shyness and mischief is extremely endearing. Am totally open with him and surprisingly light-hearted when talking about the phenomenon of the multiple reincarnation of our mentor. His response is level-headed:

“We’re all part of the same current.”

He shrugs off the oaths and secrets of the O.T.O. and is particularly weary of its hierarchy:

“It is inherently self destructive.”

He shows me a magnificent Tarot Deck of ‘feral’ forest creatures, designed and drawn by himself, which hugely impresses me. And then the full out-of-this-world magick of our encounter reveals itself. When telling him about my own Tarot interpretation by having written down my Crowley infatuation within the 22 Trumps, his eyes light up even more. Turns out he has read my Moonchild’s Odyssey in Magick Magazine. The only reader to have ever crossed my path. The print run of the mag was 10.000, so there would have been at least that many Aussies that would have read it. Fate has brought me face to face with the one for whom it had actually been written. Someone as close to the Old Crow as me. Turns out he was in Amsterdam for the 2KY transition. Between the two of us we were spanning the globe while being each in each other’s country. The world was in safe hands.

He is based in Melbourne and suggests to get together for a new moon ritual, something that his troupe partakes in every new moon. His coven is the Horus Maat Lodge in which the ‘Balance of Maat’ is integrated in the ‘Force and Fire of Horus’. Totally appropriate in this day and age. Crowley would agree and be proud of him.

Overall he is such a cool cat that he makes me feel completely at ease with the obvious fact that he is way ahead of me. The Moonchild Mantle is draped around solid shoulders.

Again, it gives me space. Am not really made for the limelight. Easier to hide amongst academians. For me it’s back to school.

*

The lecturers are delightful. To be able to give lectures is a beautiful thing. Have pleasant interactions with my profs by writing them the best possible essays and do indeed get to manifest the original idea of linking Postmodernism with the ingestion of mind-altering substances. Most overtly in a 20 minute video presentation on the student revolution in Paris 1968 for ‘Issues in Contemporary Art’.

With all the focus on work there appears to be little room for love. My Poet Rocker drops out and out of sight. Make friends with some wonderful women with whom there is a closeness that could easily have led to intimacy but which is consistently stopped short by inability to make a decisive move. Interestingly my chronic indecisiveness becomes a topic in my academic work and inspired by an infatuation with one of my class mates, produce an Arts Project for which the research is on sex and love in Postmodernity: Pomo Love: The Fall of the Phallus. It gives me an academic frame in which to explore the Postmodern intricacies of decision making, especially with Derrida’s work on ‘undecidability’ which so resonates with my own lack of assertiveness, illustrating that with a Faltering Phallus it is not so easy to follow Crowley’s dictum to Do What Thou Wilt. At the same time, by shining the academic light on something as basic as sex and love with a firm dose of tongue-in-cheek, it reflects the academic method straight back on itself in quite a hilarious way by making fun of Pomo’s excesses. It has become clear to me that since none of us is without self-righteousness the Pomo stance can be used as a weapon against one’s opponent and  end up more authoritarian than old school authoritarianism.

When delivering my Fall of the Phallus to my beloved prof, try to introduce her to my unorthodox approach to the academic paper but she just starts reading it. After a few pages she puts her feet up and keeps going, a giggle for each page and quite a few affirmative nods. After a sufficient sample her verdict is that the weaving together of theory and narrative is cleverly done and that it is poignant and well written, although the Head of School who is to mark it may have a problem with my transgression in the research method. Nevertheless she hopes to see me continue my academic career by doing ‘Honours’, followed by a PHD while tutoring at SCU. Is impressed with my understanding of the so notoriously dense Jacques Derrida and informs me that he has just died. Needless to say that the news of his death at the moment of presenting him and his ‘undecidability’ as a link between the occult and academia has an impact on me. Would academia indeed be the way to go?

*

Towards the end of the course there is a frock party. Go by a ‘classy’ op-shop to look for a frock and find a gorgeous shiny black dress that may not be a frock but kind of suits me. It is quite slutty and have the funny realisation that my choice of dress will be very revealing to my woman friends as to what kind of girl it is that is dormant inside.

When trying it on in the comfort of my own home, it turns out to fit perfectly, tight around my body in a delicious way which makes me feel absolutely terrific.

Back into town to buy some make-up and other paraphernalia like stockings, a g-string, an incredibly sexy lacy under garment and – rather more difficult to find – a garter belt which according to several lingerie shops is only available in adult stores these days.

The party is at Seven Mile Beach, South of Byron Bay. Hit the adult shop on the way, just in time to score the garter belt that seems so crucial to my tarty outfit. One of my Byron friends has agreed to help me with my make-up. In fact she jumped to the occasion:

“I’ll make you look beautiful.”

She does and it is surprising how much fun it is.

Drive out along the winding track from Broken Head to the stunning location of the party. The parking area is at some distance. Settle in and take my time putting on my gear, having a drink and the first toke of the day.

Walk up to the music and the timing is excellent. A bunch of my familiars are hanging out outside, making pictures of one another. Get a warm welcome and drape myself amongst them. One of them leads me onto the dance floor, jiving about from one mob to another presenting me with pride:

“So sexy to see a man in woman’s clothes, so accessible for feeling up.”

Everyone being in a dress creates such an easy-going atmosphere, it’s just a wonderful feeling all around.

Catch up with my girl from the Arts Project and strut my stuff, behaving like a tart, showing off the garter. She is charmed: 

“You seem to feel very comfortable as a girl. You should do it more often.”

The dance floor is full to overflowing and soon gravitate back outside. Meet some of the boyfriends of my study mates and all of us being in drag makes for instant friendship. The nature of our inner girl is indeed a fruitful topic in our hilarious conversations. We are from glam rock to angelic, from intellectual to the farcical. My own look is apparently ‘very Gothic’. The loving ambiance is so gratifying for everyone that there is very little of the common predatory lust behaviour going on.

My mission – whatever it was – feels completely accomplished. Wander off to the van and lay back, taking it in from a distance as usual. Never make it back in.

In the morning most cars are still there, full of sleeping people, my girl’s van amongst them. Just about ready to be out of there when she wakes up but the impetus is to keep going: 

“See you next week.”

Next week is the Visual Arts Graduation Show which will be the last Uni event of the year.

For now, prefer to go straight home. Being in drag has me in a state of super arousal. See myself in some ways as the hottest bitch of them all and can’t wait to be back in my own den and ravish myself. Only when by myself do all inhibitions disappear, is it possible to completely let go and get into it, whether into ecstatic dance, into lust, or into anything.

Bring my arousal to the brink and keep it there for the rest of the morning. Refrain from going over and have some sleep instead. On waking, the affair with my split self lingers on. Charge up and towards dusk retreat to my boudoir to see what the as yet untried panties can do for me when combined with the lace chemise and the sick boots. The silk feel of the panties is amazing, giving me an insight in how well ‘womanhood’ is catered for. Play and dance for hours, not forgetting to stretch and breathe, working up a sweat. Again, no coming. Not ready to spend it until my Pomo love affair has found a resolution.

At the Grad Show there are hundreds of guests, dividing their attention between artworks and the wine casks. My girl looks spectacular as always but as far as our love story goes it appears to have completed its arc. We could probably have a shag or two but at this stage it would just be for the sex and that kind of seems to be somewhat superfluous. Our affair was evidently about courtship as a creative enterprise and it feels more original to leave it there.

For me the land is calling and she isn’t exactly a bush turkey. So the end-of-year party, rather than a climax of achievement, is a ‘closure’, a rounding off.

The Head of School turns out to indeed have had a problem with the transgression in my methodology and my supervisor who in her ‘heart of hearts’ knows that my deviation from the norm was a conscious decision and finds it well worth it, has had quite a struggle defending me. Alas, the Phallus is not only to be found under the priest’s robe or police uniform as it says in the paper, but also under the skirt of certain academics.

Tell her not to worry since it can only help me decide to leave academia behind and go my own merry way. We part with a great big hug which means more to me than a validation of the paper.

*

One academic who hugely entertains as much as she teaches is Camille Paglia. Having had so much fun researching her ‘Vamps and Tramps’ for my paper, take home her tome ‘Sexual Personae‘. Celebrated literary critic Harold Bloom calls it ‘a sensation of a book: there is no book comparable in scope, stance, design or insight’. 

This 700 p. number promises to be a copious banquet of delights, a nice diversion for what is in store for me: Several months on the cane knife, brush cutter, mattock and mower. During my minimal attendance to the land over the last few years, the necessary pursuit of the noxious weeds around here has been a losing battle and the lantana, cats claw, morning glory, giant parspaillum and coral trees, just to name a few, have taken over huge areas of my paradise. My old shack is just about to be engulfed by vines and a recent flood has severed the track from shack to Abbey. 

So that’s how it is for a while: Chop-chop during the day and ‘Sexual Personae’ at night.

It turns out to be the perfect anti-dote to my own feminised perspective on the Phallus.

Dr. Paglia, although super feminist, is no man hater. She follows the ‘male’ departure from the ‘female’, the birth of art out of the wild chaos of nature, drawing the Apollonian line against the Dionysian: ‘The Dionysian is no picnic; it is the murk and ooze, the Darwinian waste and bloodshed, the squalor and rot we must block from consciousness to retain our Apollonian integrity as persons….The change from earth-cult to sky-cult, from belly-magic to head-magic is what became the spectacular glory of male civilisation which has lifted women with it’. She travels from the first Egyptian male god Kephera – interestingly, fructifying himself with his own seed – through Classical Greece, Pagan Rome, Pagan Catholicism, Renaissance, and then through the split between Rousseau and Sade:  ‘Men’s egotism, so disgusting in the talentless, is the source of their greatness as a sex’. Although convinced of the awesome superiority of woman over the efforts of man to overcome her – ‘women are more complete, men invent culture to become more complete’ – she adds that it is only the talented, often homosexual or androgynous men who can do so.

Unlike other feminists she is not afraid of ‘Hierarchism’. It is one of the nodes in the matrix along which she measures the sexual personae of her chosen painters, writers and thinkers throughout Art History. Other nodes would be the degree of narcissism, the ratio of feminine and masculine within the one artist, preference for whipping or being whipped: ‘The Romantic poet finding the Western male persona too limited, hermaphrodites himself to seize the Delphic powers of feminine receptivity while the female artist must extend her reach toward the masculine’. She speaks of a sexual metathesis, an artistic sex change; an expansion of identity through a mentally prolonged erotic sensation, directed toward the self rather than a charismatic other(!). Because ‘eroticism is a realm stalked by ghosts. It is a place beyond the pale, both cursed and enchanted, our body the tree of nature on which we are crucified. Sex is daemonic. Free will in sex and emotion is slight. The will-to-power is innate. We are hierarchical animals; sweep one hierarchy away and another will take its place’.

She doesn’t mince her words. What a ride. Academia at its best! An affirmation for both my stubborn heterosexuality and my constant strive to change this.

Somewhere in her exposé she criticises those dense French philosophers, so to refresh myself on my pre-academic gurus, dig out Robert Anton Wilson’s ‘Cosmic Trigger’ for a re-read. R.A.W.’s involvement with Discordianism, the ‘new true religion’, says it all. The irony with which they mock Western religion, logic and law sure gives Postmodernism a run for its money. Also, his interview with Tim Leary at Millbrook in 1964 shows Leary as sharp as Foucault but clearer, friendlier and more fun. Those psychedelic Yankees were at least as smart, a lot hipper and a lot less pompous than my recent guides. My hunch that going back to Uni would get me to bridge the Continental Intellectuals with the New World Acid Heads turns out to have been correct.

When Wilson writes about synchronicities, his explanation is so sound that it kind of does away with the need for a Holy Guardian Angel. He sees them as superluminal information transfer on the quantum level where particles are in instantaneous contact all over the multiverse; where every sub-atomic system adjusts into conformity with the whole by synergistic feedback faster-than-light. He adds a warning that the net of synchronicities can suck you in and can – just as ‘mundane’ reality – make you a convict of your own convictions. How’s that for an explanation of my Crowley possession!

The stint in Academia has done wonders for overcoming that feeling of possession. It may have been possession at one stage but my intellectual development has clearly led me to realise myself as a free agent. Firstly by writing down the facts that created the idea and then putting it under academic scrutiny, has educated me to see my liaison with the bugger from different perspectives. Have still no certain opinion on the situation but it is quite easy to conceive of it as a multifaceted affair. What has become prominent though is that it is nigh impossible to share it with others and rather than spreading the word it is probably better to keep it private. As such it can be lonely sometimes. Thankfully my one monk Abbey is in magnificent surroundings and am growing the super power of being content with my own company.

*

Even when being by oneself, most everything that one engages in is ultimately grounded in the search for connection. In my case this is mostly with a higher order but it would be nice to occasionally throw my arms around a warm blooded individual. Love has to go somewhere and when there is no one in the flesh, it will find something elsewhere. Holed up in my shack, it is the radio that brings me the outside world and it is amazing how seductive a disembodied voice can be. It is also so much safer to love someone who is not actually there. Byron Bay’s community radio station has a program called Planet Luv and its presenter Glittergirl is eminently lovable. The station is having a fund raiser going by getting the listeners to subscribe. For the different presenters there is a certain prestige in getting people to subscribe on their program so when she is on, am overwhelmed by a strong urge to pick up the phone and give her my support. However my procrastination lets the program go by without subscribing which makes me feel very bad. So bad that it gets me to write an apology and deliver it in her inbox at the station before her next program.

When she is on again, listen with anticipation whether she will respond on air. She does! Which sets me off on a 9 week roller coaster of writing her my responses to her program and have it in her pigeon hole before the next one. 

As a kind of live-wire writing practice it is interesting and as a kind of courting a D.J. it is contemporary but with my interpretation of L-U-V as Love Under Volition, it is the finding of the Magick in our ethereal relation which is what it is really about. You couldn’t ask for a better audience than the one in Byron Bay for this mad love/synchronicity net but when posting it on the Bay FM website it is unceremoniously removed. It is just too much personal adoration for an individual within a community organisation. Also the courting comes to nought. 

When this extraordinary little piece has gone completely nowhere, it quite shatters me. My writing comes to a grinding halt and decide to take myself off-line altogether. 

Even give up on the magickal record. The hero has bitten the dust and is facing a life by himself for years to come. In spite of the constant flow of lucky coincidences, he has to admit that not finding a suitable partner is a serious failure and it is not right to be promulgating a magick that isn’t working. 

It sometimes occurs to me that finding a suitable Tantrika could well be jinxed. For rejecting the sex magicians for instance, or for letting go of my ‘Virakam’.

*

She has become a legend in her own right. Over the years, her fabulous fashion shows have become a regular feature on Nimbin’s cultural calendar and have grown into a lavish spectacle way beyond the fashion. She has teamed up with local sound and lighting artists and created a dramatic stage show of the cat walk, circus performance, fire play, pole dancing and ritual, all in dazzling colours and costumes, very tasteful and extremely erotic, called ‘Fantasy Erotique’. It is a yearly event growing bigger, better and more risqué each year and is always sold out. 

Have followed it from a distance by reading the rave reviews in the local paper but it’s time to go and see what she has come up with. Drive to Nimbin and park my van in the caravan park. Wander over to Town Hall in the late afternoon to catch them during the preparations. The side door is open and spot her daughter who is her partner in the production, working with the technicians. 

“Hi, do you recognise me?”

She does and points to where her mother is talking with the trapeze artists. Walk over in the semi darkness lit up with mystical light projections. What a moment! Haven’t seen one  another for almost two decades. She has aged beautifully. So wonderful to see her. Her face is pleasantly surprised: 

“Are you here to see the show?”

Is delighted and invites me to the after party at her house which is just across the street.

Back to the van to get ready. Put on the stylish outfit for the occasion, charge up and quickly negotiate my elegance through the so notoriously scruffy streetscape.

The Hall is transformed into a true phantasmagoria, the crowd adding to the atmosphere by being stunningly dressed, more often than not outrageously forward in showing off their sexual personae. Find myself a prime spot and when she comes in she comes over for a quick welcome before disappearing back stage. We’re all ready for her. She has always been one of Nimbin’s favourites and it has become abundantly clear why.

First up is a pole dancer, very acrobatic, setting the tone, followed by a fashion show. A dozen of Nimbin’s exquisite beauties in dresses that are out of this world. This is the base of her art and it takes my breath away. Then it gets naughty. A dude doing a striptease on a cord to the tune of Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lot of Love. Some girl on girl action involving a python. It gets more and more ritualistic, blood sport on the trapeze, a scene in which two women are riding two trannies, whipping them as they go. A real macho bloke joins them, lording it over a woman but then being himself herded off by a magnificent dominatrix.

Have always thought that Aleister’s Rites of Eulysis must have been pretty spectacular in his days and this is surely matching it. 

When she finally appears surrounded by her magnificent troupe the applause is deafening.

We all feel proud that ragamuffin Nimbin can look so fantastically sexy and sophisticated.

Towards midnight about 150 of us wander over to her house across the street. Have the honour of being escorted there by herself.

Stepping into her house is like entering a glamour parlour created by the same magick as her show was. It feels like she is hosting a dream, even the way she interact with us is art. She has a lot of guests to attend to but finds time to occasionally stop by for a chat. Tell her that another reason for having rocked up was to show her my story on our affair back in the 1990s and knowing that she can’t read, maybe to read it to her and some of her intimates. She likes the idea and we arrange to meet up tomorrow.

Wait until the cool of the late afternoon. Besides her son and his wife it is just us, so we have ample space to catch up. Decide to just give her the print out and leave it to her how to take it in. Remind her of my Crowley possession behind the origin of writing down our tale, and how after seeing the show, the idea of her being my ‘Virakam’ has become even more significant. Tell her about the striking similarity between his efforts to inform the world about Magick with his ‘Rites of Eulysis’, and her aim to make Nimbin accept queer and quirky sexuality with her ‘Fantasy Erotique’. In some weird and mysterious way our Moonchild turns out to have had an actual effect on the world:

“You’ve actually been doing my job”.

She is interested and seems pleased we have caught up. As for me it is clear that she is as gorgeous and lovable as ever. The handsome, charismatic face is still captivating, her voluptuousness has turned mean and lean, muscled arms, strong hands, her delightful legs still totally desirable.

But of course she has well and truly moved on. It is painfully clear that letting her go has been one of the greatest failings in my love life. It must have pissed the Goddess off so severely that She punished me by having her be the last girlfriend of my romantic career.

It is back to my own devices.

***