Several moons have passed since my arrival back upon these shores and I miss the warmth of the subcontinent. Although the Michaelmass moon is waxing full, the winds have turned bitter and the rains persistent. As I indicated in my last post however, I do own a tweed jacket and I also possess a raincoat and even simple camping equipment provided by a grateful admirer and I daresay, acolyte from the South-West, with whom I encountered a demonic presence during my summer travels.
This expedition, from which I have not long returned, emerged from my experiences in the haunted house located on St Hilary’s Brow in Wallasey Village. There is, incidentally, another brow in the town, along which the Magazines – my once and current place of residence - is located and I suspect it was such anthropomorphic names which drew me to these places; much of my literary work has been spent chronicling the encounters my Maternal Uncle – Sir Parnassus Mang – experienced with a giant in the south-west of England. Indeed, children, to think of our island as a sleeping giant, or at least as a host to a titanic being slumbering beneath or just beyond our shores, has an antique precedent. I can now declare that my summer wanderings where ostensibly to locate and commune with this being as much as they were to ‘flee’ what was unearthed in that house on St Hilary’s brow...
I left my last teaching with the claim that Saturn sought to strangle Shakti. What this may mean should become apparent. I cannot teach you what it means; only reveal the mysteries which lay behind such a statement, mysteries into which you will initiate yourself if you are perceptive and diligent. I should add that just because I will not employ the Hindi titles which I have earned – Swami Swift sounds a little glib for instance – I use the ‘Sir’ which I have inherited from my family out of respect to ancestral shades – it does not lessen my achievements in mastering the demands of the lower self. I do not boast that I am attuned to the divine harmony which echoes through creation, I merely state it as a fact.
Now I was recounting my investigation of a haunted property with a group of young men. The house in question overlooked both the Irish Sea and the sweep of low-lying land toward the Dee estuary and the gently rolling, even serpentine undulation of the Welsh Hills beyond. It was situated just below the adjoining churchyard, dedicated to St Hilary. There are traces of old England there – from the ruined Tudor tower of the original church to the uneven mounding and dipping of the earth, across which the monuments are scattered in higgledy-piggledy fashion. The elevation affords a fine view; whilst much of the foreground is urbanised, the sweep of the bay, the far ridge of sand dunes and over all and frequently seen in silhouette, the evocative profile of the hills.
Before entering, I spent some time meditating among the graves. Even at that juncture, I perceived an sense of absence – not the beautiful detachment from selfishness and its attendant sorrows, nor the sense of intense lightness that suggests that one could expand, becoming all things at once; rather there was a sudden and horrible conviction that the earth was about to collapse beneath me, sending me tumbling into a gulf. Usually impervious to fear, this experience was disturbing and suggested, correctly, that horrors would be encountered during the course of our investigation.
Unsettled, but not undeterred, I made for the house. A large, detached building, built originally as the vicarage in the eighteenth and whose upper windows on one side were level with the churchyard I found the young men already present and all dressed in boiler suits, as if they were about to engage in manual labour; there was also a van parked in the driveway, suggesting we were there to install something or other, rather than ascertain the nature of the haunting. After a cursory tour of the house, with its impressive staircase and its rooms facing both toward the sea and back toward the churchyard, it was deemed time for lunch and we retired to a hostelry at the bottom of the hill.
Thankfully, the garrulous Mister Crass was not present and we enjoyed our dining experience at the Cheshire Cheese, a traditional pub serving a pleasing selection of high quality ales.
‘St Hilary who was she?’ asked one of the youngish men over lunch. Ignorance is no bar, apparently, to investigating the paranormal - I say ‘paranormal’ – the dead are as usual to me as the wolf and the wind where to our ancestors. Anyhow, I explained that Hilary was a male saint although I had long since forgotten the reasons behind his canonisation. Over lunch, our course of action was outlined, along with some of the mythology associated with the place and the town in general. Familiar tales about smuggling, tunnels criss-crossing the sandstone ridge and buried treasure were outlined, but the legend concerning the house was new to myself. Aquinas – so I called him, I forget his name but knew that he was engaged in the study of Theology and in particular that eminent thinker – declared that subsidence upon the hillside affected a nineteenth century incumbent of the vicarage so much so that his anxiety unhinged him and he became convinced that he held communion with beings unseen. When he finally vanished – dragged deep under the ground according to contemporary opinion – although more probably driven into the waves and sweeping currents of the sea – the house was abandoned and eventually sold into private hands. Now, understandably, I was intrigued by this after my experience in the graveyard, however any further meditation at that time was disturbed by the allotting of duties: I was requested to sit in séance at regular parts of the day and night, the young men were to film me and record me on various devices which could apparently then be plugged into computers. Once we had all agreed with this loose plan, any further discussion was curtailed by the need to examine the health of the public house by sampling its range of refreshment.
Upon returning to the house, I fell into meditation, whilst sat upon the staircase. There was a pleasant sun penetrating the western window above the stairs and sitting there, whilst the young men blundered about with cameras and cables, I passed into vision; the sunlight, burnishing the stair rods and reaching deep into the rich wood bordering the carpet, created the effect of a jewel of light, a sphere, suspended within the stairwell. The motes of dust were gathered into it, lost under its radiance and as I followed their passage and disappearance into the light, I apprehended a female form; she seemed youthful and clad in a loose shift or robe. How long the experience lasted I cannot say but it was disrupted as I became aware of the young men filming me and then vision passed entirely, not to return at that moment. This was the first indication that the staircase was to be an important feature of our investigation, however the following séance, held on the first night in the living room, yielded vivid and surprising results!
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