how the twisted Hermetic genius of Paul Giamatti slays illusion & what it means for you
You're probably familiar with America's sweetheart, Paul Giamatti...
... he's an amazing alchemical magician and an example of the kind of humbling integration it takes to fulfill the Great Work.
He stars as a Machiavellian attorney with a masochistic bent on the hit Showtime series Billions...
... and he also produces and guest stars on on Lodge 49, an alchemy-themed comedy about adorable members of a Mason-like occult lodge set in Long Beach, California. (you can find it on Amazon Prime for purchase)
On Lodge 49, Giamatti plays Lamar Marvin Metz, a best-selling crime thriller author beloved by Lodge members, Dud and Ernie.
In Season 1 of the show, we only hear Giamatti's voice on audio book recordings that main characters Dud and Ernie drink up as they drive around Long Beach.
But on Season 2, Giamatti as Lamar Marvin Metz shows up in full force when the characters travel to Mexico in pursuit of long-lost scrolls rumored to reveal the meaning of life, and thought by some shady corporate CEOs to hold an algorithmic key to making fast & easy Bitcoin.
As I mentioned, I've come to suspect that Paul Giamatti isn't just a great actor, he's a great magician.
How so?
He does the Great Work, joyfully integrating both tragic and comic sides of himself, through the television he makes.
((Caution - what follows gives some spoiler-y stuff))
What exactly leads me to suspect Giamatti's magical, alchemical prowess?
Well, in Billions, Giamatti's character Chuck Rhoades goes wildly off the moral rails in his pursuit of his nemesis until ...
... he starts being open with the world about his masochistic kink and learns to integrate previously-unconscious parts of himself, including his "monster."
Giamatti-as-Rhoades then enrolls these newly integrated parts into serving his mission to serve up some real justice to Wall Street.
Gee, sound like any other highly interesting magic you've heard of lately?
Now of course, that compelling turn of events on Billions could have just been due to the screenwriters...
.... but I sense that Giamatti himself came up with that magical twist about Shadow / True Self integration...
... because he produced (and therefore put a lot of time and money into creating) Lodge 49, which delves into both the rich symbolism and High Comedy weirdness that modern-day practicing magicians get into as they do the Great Work of uniting with their true divine identity and life's purpose.
Specifically, Giamatti as writer Lamar Marvin Metz on Lodge 49 suffers from a compulsion to dive through mirrors and windows and walls...
.... seeking to penetrate through the surface of the world into the hidden depths beyond, seeming to take literally Captain Ahab's command in Moby Dick:
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event—in the living act, the undoubted deed—there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask!"
This sort of thinking drove Captain Ahab's own quest to kill the White Whale, a quest which was far less about obtaining whale oil and far more about driving a harpoon into the animal as a giant "Fuck You" to the terrible hiddenness of God.
In addition to attempting to strike into the heart of mystery by literally leaping through walls...
... Giamatti-as-Metz also identifies with Tom Stone, the action hero of his own crime thriller novels ( "Tom Stone, ce'st moi," he says in a hilarious echo of the words of the great French novelist Flaubert: "Madame Bovary, c'est moi")...
... to the point that Metz believes he can do anything Tom Stone can do, including flying airplanes.
Metz can't actually pilot, a fun fact which leads to him and other characters having to parachute out of the plane.
But the story makes clear that Metz has advanced as far as he has in life (he travels with a beautiful blond French muse, he's beloved by his fans, and, as I mentioned, he writes best-selling novels)...
.... through his dogged determination to manifest in himself (at times, unsuccessfully - hence the parachute jump) the qualities of Tom Stone.
The name Tom Stone, of course, invokes the notion of the formation of the Philosopher's Stone, the aim of the Great Work... union with the True Self.
By uniting with his fictional character, Metz goes deeper into the adventure of becoming his True Self.
I feel that Giamatti is up to the same kind of magical game.
For example: like both his characters attorney Chuck Rhoades and crime thriller author Lamar Melvin Metz, Giamatti himself apparently loves to think about the law, crime, and transgression.
Giamatti does this in part by sitting in on murder trials at the Old Bailey, London's central criminal court, whenever he's in the city (as he admitted to Stephen Colbert in a 2018 interview).
I find this fascinating - it's as if Giamatti is caricaturing himself as Lamar Marvin Metz - an artist obsessed with the subject matter of his craft (law, crime, transgression), intoxicated with symbolism and synchronicity, seeking to penetrate the divine.
Giamatti might also be caricaturing himself as Chuck Rhoades - a self-destructive, kinky lawyer obsessed with penetrating mystery by fulfilling an Ahab-like quest to harpoon his nemesis, the hedge-fund manager Bobby Axelrod.
One character (Metz) is comic, one (Rhoades) is rather tragic.
But they're both sides of the same beautiful Giamatti coin.
It's impossible to make a show like Lodge 49 about this kind of heavy & delightful alchemical stuff, let alone produce it, without being immersed in the work yourself.
Hence, I conclude Paul Giamatti is a not just an awesome artist but a great magician, one filled with mischief and hilarity, well on the way to integrating his True Self and power....
.... or, as Twitter would have it, Giamatti "has Big Dick Energy" - not cockiness, not arrogance, but a radiant sense of self-comfort & self-confidence.
What dick, I ask you, is bigger than the Divine Phallus that perpetually penetrates the Divine Vulva in a dance of protons and electrons, black holes and starlight, center and circumference, constantly creating in each moment the tragi-comedy of all reality?
Sooooooooooo.... what about you?
Want to follow Giamatti's example and go on a mad Hermetic adventure with other magicians... and end up with sexy muses and fans who absolutely love you?
Want to drive a (metaphorical, please) harpoon through the illusion of material reality and penetrate into your most hidden truth?
Want to complete the Great Work of uniting with your True Self and purpose, while also making a ton of money and rising to the top of your field?
If so, you're in luck! ...
... because WEALTH: the alchemical community where leaders come into their full power via the Hermetic Arts is open for application / registration this week.
best,
Carolyn Elliott
author of Existential Kink: unmask your shadow and embrace your power
P.S. If you're out there reading this and you happen to know how best to reach Paul Giamatti, I have a book I think he'd very much enjoy; let's connect. Kindly write to my assistant Elyna about it - elyna@carolynelliottpresents.com and one day we can all sit around recounting a fun synchronous tale.
P.P.S. You can click here to learn way more about WEALTH and apply to join. This application period closes on May 29th and I'm not sure yet when we will open again, so now's the time to get on this magical mystery tour.