The Devil’s Whisper
I sit with the running sheets for the book on the Goetic demon Andromalius. The beautiful pages keep me engaged. This is the fine edition I’m looking at, soon to be launched in style in early October, my birthday month. A gift to myself and magicians of all aptitudes.
My partner puts the food on the table, a dish he made inspired by the Japanese oden, a style of cooking vegetables with meat.
As if reading my mind he says: ‘imagine Bach having a guitar player like Paco de Lucia to write music for. ‘Yes, imagine that,’ I exclaim with enthusiasm, and because I have mastery on my mind, I just conclude: ‘they’re now hanging out in heaven, making sublime music together.’ ‘Yes',’ the partner goes, ‘Bach says to Paco, Paco, I’m going to break your fingers today, to which Paco replies, Johann, give me your best shot.’
I’m on the floor laughing, because I can see the very thing.
Then I say, ‘there’s no way these two could do what they did without having made a pact with the Devil. One way or another.’
I offer this counter vision: ‘Bach and Paco de Lucia met the same Devil at the crossroads. And the Devil said to them, whatever you do, don’t emote. No one wants a master to emote. A master must show utmost control and sublime skill, not emotions. What are emotions good for when the stake is called form – the form all performances take?’
Hence the posture. Paco de Lucia was leaning into his guitar in a most upright way, if we can even call what he did, leaning. His riding on this horse was a thing of mastery in itself, let alone the galloping.
‘Yes,’ the partner says. He can also instantly see Paco on a horse, as riding a horse tends to take care of the skill of maintaining a straight spine. Paco de Lucia resembles in this the other straight horseman, the Bach virtuoso on the violin, Yehudi Menuhin. Straight as a magical pine tree.
True devils, these men. All invested in making one transmission: perform with style, not with some goddamn emotive trick.
I think of my relationship with the spirits of the grimoires. I see them all as stylists who perform their functions to mastery. Such demons will recognize you as their equal, if they see that what you expect from their personality is not the thing that makes you human – whatever that is in our modern ‘empty talk’ discourse – but rather the thing that makes you understand a job done well.
The dinner is lavish. Paco and Johann are sorting out the master plan with the breaking of fingers. I’m having a Romanian anti-stress tea from my Andromalius mug. I close my eyes and praise my understanding of the word performance. I never became a music critic, though I would have been good at it. I get the crossroads thing instead, where you make pacts for the highest, which is to refrain from spreading glitter on hot balloons. Bach never did it. Paco never did it. Andromalius never does it either. I call all this visionary studies.
The better story
Embodied perfection exists. We find it in matching talent and aptitude to the will to mastery. Somehow I don’t see the Devils I admire going around falling for the cult of validation: ‘don’t do your best, there’s nothing in it for you. Indulge your vices, no, in fact, make sure you pile up on them, then let everyone know about them, demanding in the process that you be praised for your transparency and integrity.’
This is the whisper of the lesser demons, the ones whose enchantment is the indulgence in laziness and mediocrity. No thanks. Says, Paco. Says Johann. Says Yehudi. Says Andromalius. Says I. Our cult is a Sadist cult whose slogan is, ‘no pain, no gain,’ whose very condition for existence is called distinction.
When demons whisper into your ears, can you name them?
Not Bach, but Bach is already thinking of how he can break Paco’s fingers. When the devils of mastery get together, performance becomes gnosis, not something to emote over, but rather what makes you ask: who or what are you ‘married’ to?
Running sheets
Andromalius, Take Two: Goetic Stories, Table of Contents
A silver call in the form of silver edges.
This devil, Yehudi Menuhin, has the power to raise the dead. Modern magicians got nothing on this conjuror. No one does it quite like him. He appears on my sister’s TV and I get up to do some zombie moves. Sister sneaks up on me with the camera. Menuhin kills it. Every time. I'm with the dead now. Someone is whispering into my ears: ‘what is your status now?’
This one made a pact with Bach who made a pact with the Devil who made a pact with the dexterous fingers of a competent magician. Abracadabra.
