I referred in my last instruction to the mobile phones the young men had about their persons. Aquinas had two! Despite the group’s sincere desire to experience spirit manifestation, these intrusive items were so important that they remained permanently activated. Did they expect the dead to text-message them? Did they expect a member of the eighteenth century clergy to ‘blue-tooth’ them. Not only has this technology led to all manner of vulgar verbs being bandied about, but the most trivial matters have been vested with an entitlement to intrude upon one’s consciousness: I have to stop talking to you in order to text my friend, I have to respond to this photo I have been sent. Indeed, it is common to see groups of young people in a pub, all sitting in silence, texting others who aren’t there. Indeed further, the panic engendered by the treat of the battery failing in such a device whilst we were in the house, was a great as any sparked by an outbreak of preternatural phenomenon. Even as I voice that observation, I feel that the true haunting of Albion lies somewhere within it.
As I have indicated in my last teaching, I had proved beyond any serious doubt that the house adjoining St. Hilary’s Church, Wallasey was a focus of spirit phenomena and after a number of preternatural manifestations, the stage was set for the vigil through the night.
I forget precisely what time the first apparition manifested, although it was after Mr Crass’ experience. I had returned to the stairs where I slipped into deep meditation, experiencing Samadhi (a state beyond the daily self which is in communion with the Divine Principle that sustains the universe), when I became aware of commotion around me. Reattaching myself to my senses, I found the young men seemingly pointing cameras at me. My initial instinct was that I was exuding waves of compassion and peace (Prana if you will) which were registering on their assorted devices however when they gestured above me, it became apparent that their interest was drawn to a figure on the landing above. At the head of the stairs there was a single step which led to either side of the upper floor. The area of landing in-between the two steps was broad, hosting a grandfather clock which rested in a niche built into the wall. On this occasion, as evidenced by the light from the landing lights and by a flashlight from the young men below, the clock and the alcove had faded behind a shadowy figure. It stood, neither between the stairs, nor in the alcove but somehow it covered the two. It eluded the eye, no sooner had one registered it than one’s gaze slid to the banister or to the landing running away and so the viewer had to continually readjust the gaze. My initial impression was that it hovered before us and then I thought our tangible world was opened up and we looked upon a shadow from beyond. Although motionless and in no wise threatening, it was deeply unsettling to look upon an apparition which first protruded into our world and then seemed to suck one’s awareness out into the gloomy world beyond our own. The young men reacted with some degree of horror, yet they retained enough composure to try and capture the apparition on film; I, on the other hand, sought in vain to detect any features within the shadow and as I looked on, the sigh of the wind and settle of the wood, drew my consciousness and I found myself drawn on those noises out into a wide space, until my awareness spilled into the gulf of the sky, attuned to the winds whilst another strand of my being plunged in a leaden dive, down onto unyielding rocks washed by waves. Around me, voices flickered and danced and beings unseen were propelled through the ether, drawn around me, whilst below, beneath the sand, below the thin grass roots, below the soils, there was an awakening, an anticipation of my descent. And under the pressure of those who regarded me unseen, I dissolved into the immensity of the space, the crashing expanse of sea, the layers of rock and the weightless expanse of the sky.
When I awoke from this period of self-abandonment, the shadow remained and I was aware that there was something of a face, which looked to my right, even as it strained to regard me from the corner of a stern eye.
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