I carry darkness within me. It is the shadow of my former sins and cravings, a shadow magnified by the presence of something other...
Welcome to the teachings of Sir Swithin Swift, I am a man who found enlightenment in India and returned to share this blissful liberation with Albion’s children.
Any who are new to these teachings should consult my previous posts which form an account of an investigation into a haunted house, carried out by this author and some assistants in a Northern English town during the summer 2010.
The cellar was the focal point of the haunting at the Magazine’s Hotel, an eighteenth century inn on the Wirral coast. Accompanying a nervous bar-maid down into that space, I found that my presence and the trace of the haunting from St Hilary’s, magnified the intensity of the haunting.
‘Normally it’s just a creepy feeling, or the sound of something moving, like its been knocked over,’ the bar maid said once we had emerged from that space, ‘it’s never been that bad, I’ll never go down there again.’
I am not prepared to go into detail on the particular manifestations which we experienced, however the girl was not in anyway harmed and the damage committed was minimal. I can confirm that there are several spirits residing at the hotel however there was something that had never been human which also lurked there.
What is significant is the means by which I overcame this apparition, initially in the cellar and then finally one night whilst on the promenade when it reappeared to me.
It was not only through intense meditation and invocation of the gods, but also through the instinctive projection of the chakras outward (chakras are the sacred centres within the subtle body through which the Kundalini – the divinity within – rises and falls).
Whilst investigating the house at St Hilary’s, I had thought little about the chakra imagery which arose during my trance state. I assumed the chakra was merely being employed. What I now understand was that I wasn’t just working with the chakras but I was entering them...
At the time I believed, not unreasonably, that it was my personal chakras into which I was passing. Now, I know differently.
As the manifestations raged in the cellar, I invoked the Celestial Goddess whose presence rests within us as the Kundalini.
She announced Her presence with a rumble that set the tangible world shivering like it was a reflection in a pool; the surrounding stone and wood became shadows under sunlight, and soon they were lost under the pool and its delicate gold (emblematic of the Muladhara chakra, in which the Goddess resides before she has been invited into full realisation).
A white illumination spilled around until I passed unto it. Whilst in this trance state, two human bones became evident. I have no doubt now that they remain under the stones of the cellar floor and what I perceived was a subtle impression of them – a haunting if you like. As the psychic eruption burst tangibly around the cellar, within my moon-wrought body, I raised the bones – one of the thigh the other of the upper arm – and formed a cross parallel to the ceiling.
The visionary pool was below me and I might have stood within it, as wisps of mists rose from the water’s shifting gold.
This vapour gathered around the bones and then billowed up into swaying clouds in which I witnessed the bare feet of one who moved above me. I saw the contours of a body, pushing through the contours of the cloud and delineated by scored brands of light. In an instant it was as if I were alongside this being, holding a skull which hung, among many, on a vine of unearthly blooms around Her neck.
Looking upward, into the source of this glow, was to look into the face of the Goddess, the Shakti unbound and unveiled and I departed from my self as if on wings of flame...
... in the house I had channelled the spirit through the brahma within, into the universal Brahma...
...here, I willed the darkness from the physical cellar upward and I rose upon it, riding its swelling crest; the necklace of the Goddess slipped below me and the burning contours of Her face formed in my mind, until I were level with Her gaze and the apparition which had migrated into my trance, settled into the blank spaces between the shining contours of her celestial self.
In this visionary state the disturbances in the physical world were ‘laid’ and the barmaid and I were able to exit the cellar. The young lady was nearly hysterical and it was fortunate that the other gentlemen who had been present had descended, drawn by the noise, to witness myself in trance and the young lady assailed by an unseen force.
I reassured all that the presence was now ‘laid’ within the pub and that there should be nothing more than an eerie atmosphere about the place.
Once the bar manager had been informed of the events, he was alas, less than grateful and I decided to find another lodging.
(Not entirely true, he was barred. I was there when the manager exploded at him, screaming, ‘you wind the regulars up, you buy a half and fall asleep, when you are awake you rant away...piss off and take your bloody ghosts with yer!’ All of which was true, ed., sorry, ‘typist’ - see previous posts for this to make sense, as if anything does on this blog!)
Saturday 19 March 2011
Saturday 12 March 2011
The Leaden Pull of the Sea
I carry a darkness within me. It is the shadow of my former sins and cravings, a shadow magnified by the presence of something other...
To any who are new to these teachings, please consult my previous posts which form an account of an investigation into a haunted house, carried out by this author and some assistants in a Northern English town during the summer 2010.
In this next lesson, I wish to instruct my readers on how a spiritual experience in one location can leave an impression which draws spectral presences in another.
Last summer, I had spent hours alone in New Brighton's Magazine's Hotel. It is often quiet during the weekdays when I passed most of my time there, either deep in thought or committing memories of my Uncle’s adventures to paper. There is an atmosphere about the place. The face reflected in the upraised glass is not one’s own. A shadow crosses the gleam of a brass hanging when none has moved in the pub. A scent is detected – a hint of a floral fragrance, an odour of roasting pig. Faint sounds emanate from unoccupied corners; I have even noticed a distinct taste of rum appearing in the back of my throat, a drink which I have not attempted in years. It would appear our very senses are haunted by this building.
I was once alerted to a spectral face peering from a tiny, second floor window, by a group of middle-aged male drinkers sat at the next table in the beer garden. It appeared they were all aware of stories of a ghostly presence peering out from time to time light and when one of them called out that old ‘Kieran’ was looking out at us and began waving up at the window, they all turned and waved jovially. It appeared later that only one of the group had seen the image as a discussion followed about sunlight on glass etcetera; however I can confirm that a face, not entirely substantial, peered from that window, looking seaward. It was a tired, pinched face, that of an old man which stared so wistfully from behind the glass for several seconds, before a cloud snuffed out the window’s gleam.
I asked the gentlemen who had spotted the apparition who ‘Kieran’ was and he replied pleasantly enough, stating it was the name of the ghost which various people had claimed to spot looking from the window. Unable to provide any more information on this spectre he advised I talk to the bar staff who often complained of an uneasy atmosphere about the building, before discoursing on the superstitions around the stuffed witches hung in the bar area.
Built two and a half centuries ago, the Mags served the ‘powder village’, the community who grew around the powder store whose remnants survive in the form of turreted walls and gates opposite a row of fisherman’s cottages. Several rooms, including a space barely larger than an alcove, open off the central bar and despite its size, this layout together with the dark beams and panelling render the place a dark, snug pub. The mind that is adrift in the ebb and flow of the material realm finds something deeply reassuring about such places; something womb-like even; ale washes through the body, numbing anxiety, unyoking us from that which anchors us into gloom; pumped froth heaves into bright glasses, its swirling clouds settle into an earthen glow whose richness sets the heart singing, awakening laughter, luring us back again and again into its embrace.
If I were not an enlightened man, I would devote every waking hour to the celebration of ale; as a spiritual leader, I have cast my bond to the temporal world asunder. When I sip on ale I am not immersed in pleasure but I surrender to the life brewed into the drink itself.
What a remarkable life ale has, even in the pub alone. Kept amid the sandstone, until it is summoned forth and fleet-footed, it wings its passage up from the dark cellars to impart the produce of fertile soils and sun-nurtured hops into the shining vessel. Golden life summoned from the rock, bearing the drinker on its wing, even as it binds him to the rock.
Acting on the fore-mentioned gentleman’s suggestion I did talk to one of the chattier barmaids who expressed a general dislike of the ‘creepy’ cellar. It was a quiet afternoon when we spoke and I offered to accompany her down there when she had to change a barrel. She was glad of the company and together we descended into that dank space.
Two things struck me about the cellars. Firstly they reminded me of the catacombs below the house at St Hilary’s and they did indeed draw out the stain those dark depths impressed upon my psyche; secondly, they reminded me of a dank, cramped cell I had dwelled in when I was studying in India, a place that I do not happily recall.
Standing on the steps with dank air wafting up, accompanied by the smell of ale and stagnant water, the briney tang that laced the air with a fresher tinge, suggested we were in the hull of a boat ready to set sail out across the estuary.
I recall the self-satisfied laughter of a couple of gentlemen and the ticking of the clock in the bar drifting down but these were drowned under a flood of impressions that welled upward, poured from the rock itself: I was conscious of the porous stone which enclosed us along with the drag of tides beyond; I felt, as if they were within me, cargos hauled from the swell and then a corpse bobbing like a cork, until turning tides dragged it back across rocks, smearing fleshy residue across the matted weeds; I was the slapping, slopping tides as they retreated and as they turned, rising again, I was pounding into crevices, exploding over humps of rock, collpassing into bubbles skating across the film, skittering across the sweep of sand, until the inexorable, leaden drag of the currents gathered me. It was an impression of moonlight breaking into my senses that roused me, for as the radiance broke through me, I soared beyond the dead pull of the sea...
It was this transcendent state, that saved both of us. Aligned with the sense of the deep currents of the sea, some unseen thing burst through the cellar and dragged itself taut around us...
------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My acolyte referred to himself as ‘ed.’ in the last post.
He is not an editor, he is a devoted student of my teachings which he commits to computer.
He is a typist.
He is gaining enlightenment through this service to mankind. Any adoption of titles, or hubristic meddling with my words are manifestations of egoism and they shall be replied to with a sermonising that will scatter as dust, the most impertinent of personalities.
He was correct however, to say that those few who will comprehend its guidance may acquire the history of my maternal uncle’s adventures via ‘Amazon’ on the ‘internet’; it cannot be bought in shops, even those reservoirs, nay, kingdoms of culture - second-hand bookshops!
I must not appear ungrateful of course, I have tolerated the attentions of my hosts recently. My acolyte’s good lady wife permits one evening a week when i may take advantage of their hospitality although i am forced to bathe before I may join the family for dinner. Last week, this was a necessity as I had, on this occasion, been handling the dead – all for the most noble of reasons of course which I shall divulge when you, my loyal readership, is fully prepared.
To any who are new to these teachings, please consult my previous posts which form an account of an investigation into a haunted house, carried out by this author and some assistants in a Northern English town during the summer 2010.
In this next lesson, I wish to instruct my readers on how a spiritual experience in one location can leave an impression which draws spectral presences in another.
Last summer, I had spent hours alone in New Brighton's Magazine's Hotel. It is often quiet during the weekdays when I passed most of my time there, either deep in thought or committing memories of my Uncle’s adventures to paper. There is an atmosphere about the place. The face reflected in the upraised glass is not one’s own. A shadow crosses the gleam of a brass hanging when none has moved in the pub. A scent is detected – a hint of a floral fragrance, an odour of roasting pig. Faint sounds emanate from unoccupied corners; I have even noticed a distinct taste of rum appearing in the back of my throat, a drink which I have not attempted in years. It would appear our very senses are haunted by this building.
I was once alerted to a spectral face peering from a tiny, second floor window, by a group of middle-aged male drinkers sat at the next table in the beer garden. It appeared they were all aware of stories of a ghostly presence peering out from time to time light and when one of them called out that old ‘Kieran’ was looking out at us and began waving up at the window, they all turned and waved jovially. It appeared later that only one of the group had seen the image as a discussion followed about sunlight on glass etcetera; however I can confirm that a face, not entirely substantial, peered from that window, looking seaward. It was a tired, pinched face, that of an old man which stared so wistfully from behind the glass for several seconds, before a cloud snuffed out the window’s gleam.
I asked the gentlemen who had spotted the apparition who ‘Kieran’ was and he replied pleasantly enough, stating it was the name of the ghost which various people had claimed to spot looking from the window. Unable to provide any more information on this spectre he advised I talk to the bar staff who often complained of an uneasy atmosphere about the building, before discoursing on the superstitions around the stuffed witches hung in the bar area.
Built two and a half centuries ago, the Mags served the ‘powder village’, the community who grew around the powder store whose remnants survive in the form of turreted walls and gates opposite a row of fisherman’s cottages. Several rooms, including a space barely larger than an alcove, open off the central bar and despite its size, this layout together with the dark beams and panelling render the place a dark, snug pub. The mind that is adrift in the ebb and flow of the material realm finds something deeply reassuring about such places; something womb-like even; ale washes through the body, numbing anxiety, unyoking us from that which anchors us into gloom; pumped froth heaves into bright glasses, its swirling clouds settle into an earthen glow whose richness sets the heart singing, awakening laughter, luring us back again and again into its embrace.
If I were not an enlightened man, I would devote every waking hour to the celebration of ale; as a spiritual leader, I have cast my bond to the temporal world asunder. When I sip on ale I am not immersed in pleasure but I surrender to the life brewed into the drink itself.
What a remarkable life ale has, even in the pub alone. Kept amid the sandstone, until it is summoned forth and fleet-footed, it wings its passage up from the dark cellars to impart the produce of fertile soils and sun-nurtured hops into the shining vessel. Golden life summoned from the rock, bearing the drinker on its wing, even as it binds him to the rock.
Acting on the fore-mentioned gentleman’s suggestion I did talk to one of the chattier barmaids who expressed a general dislike of the ‘creepy’ cellar. It was a quiet afternoon when we spoke and I offered to accompany her down there when she had to change a barrel. She was glad of the company and together we descended into that dank space.
Two things struck me about the cellars. Firstly they reminded me of the catacombs below the house at St Hilary’s and they did indeed draw out the stain those dark depths impressed upon my psyche; secondly, they reminded me of a dank, cramped cell I had dwelled in when I was studying in India, a place that I do not happily recall.
Standing on the steps with dank air wafting up, accompanied by the smell of ale and stagnant water, the briney tang that laced the air with a fresher tinge, suggested we were in the hull of a boat ready to set sail out across the estuary.
I recall the self-satisfied laughter of a couple of gentlemen and the ticking of the clock in the bar drifting down but these were drowned under a flood of impressions that welled upward, poured from the rock itself: I was conscious of the porous stone which enclosed us along with the drag of tides beyond; I felt, as if they were within me, cargos hauled from the swell and then a corpse bobbing like a cork, until turning tides dragged it back across rocks, smearing fleshy residue across the matted weeds; I was the slapping, slopping tides as they retreated and as they turned, rising again, I was pounding into crevices, exploding over humps of rock, collpassing into bubbles skating across the film, skittering across the sweep of sand, until the inexorable, leaden drag of the currents gathered me. It was an impression of moonlight breaking into my senses that roused me, for as the radiance broke through me, I soared beyond the dead pull of the sea...
It was this transcendent state, that saved both of us. Aligned with the sense of the deep currents of the sea, some unseen thing burst through the cellar and dragged itself taut around us...
------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My acolyte referred to himself as ‘ed.’ in the last post.
He is not an editor, he is a devoted student of my teachings which he commits to computer.
He is a typist.
He is gaining enlightenment through this service to mankind. Any adoption of titles, or hubristic meddling with my words are manifestations of egoism and they shall be replied to with a sermonising that will scatter as dust, the most impertinent of personalities.
He was correct however, to say that those few who will comprehend its guidance may acquire the history of my maternal uncle’s adventures via ‘Amazon’ on the ‘internet’; it cannot be bought in shops, even those reservoirs, nay, kingdoms of culture - second-hand bookshops!
I must not appear ungrateful of course, I have tolerated the attentions of my hosts recently. My acolyte’s good lady wife permits one evening a week when i may take advantage of their hospitality although i am forced to bathe before I may join the family for dinner. Last week, this was a necessity as I had, on this occasion, been handling the dead – all for the most noble of reasons of course which I shall divulge when you, my loyal readership, is fully prepared.
Friday 4 March 2011
Sweet Albion, My Land of the Dead
I carry a darkness within me. It is the shadow of my former sins and cravings, a shadow magnified by the presence of another...
To any who are new to these teachings, please consult my previous posts which form an account of an investigation into a haunted house, carried out by this author and some assistants in a Northern English town during the summer 2010.
Like any spot that is long-settled, yet also lightly-populated, even lonely, the Downs and the Vale had their share of hauntings. Shadows cast by the accidents and tragedies of rural life had, through the long ebb and flow of the seasons, blended into the rustling woods and mossy rocks that bordered the flowing waters. Perhaps a lonely traveler, passing late over the moors, picking their cautious way back through the steep, wooded hillsides to the comfort of the village inn, might catch a glimpse of a pale, grief-stricken figure looking from across an abandoned mill pond; they might hear faint voices, their strands of song splitting faintly from the wind, or perhaps they may catch a whisper from the creaking bows of an oak, but to an inhabitant of the vale, these shades were as much part of the landscape as the stones and trees that they had known all their lives.
So I wrote about the haunted Wessex that my maternal Uncle, Sir Parnassus Mang, explored at the end of the last century but one. I composed these lines shortly after my experience in the house at St Hilary’s in my hometown of Wallasey on the Wirral peninsula.
I was in India, a country from which I had never thought to return and which I still miss – how I pine for thee, Mother of my Sadhana (spiritual path), Mother of Samadhi (an experience of enlightenment) - when I received a vision in which I was instructed to commit Mang’s experiences to paper. I began composing what I could recall of his deeds although as I progressed I found new memories and insights surfaced into awareness.
Several drafts were started, one even completed, before I finally heeded the growing urge to return to the land in which my ancestor found his true Self.
(These ‘adventures’ are now available as ‘Binder of Bone, Keeper of Corn’, in down-load form from Amazon, ed.)
It was hard returning home from a land where amid the frenzied commercialism, the desperate poverty and self-absorbed wealth, there were poverty-stricken saints, whose chants billowed forth on palls of incense from shrines; where the endless, arid plains and crammed, squalid cities were relieved by sacred hills and holy rivers that swept the devote beyond the glare and the stink and the choking dust into luminous contemplation of the Absolute resting within and beyond the world of sense.
It seemed appropriate that, as Sir Parnassus oft reminded me, the Romans had conceived of our Albion as an Island of the Dead. Here, at the edge of the world, fallen Saturn was bound. It was to this island that boatmen would ferry the souls of the deceased and the voice of Dis Pater could be heard, calling all to their beyond .
It was after the investigation of that house by the church and after the experiences which unfolded from it, that I began to think anew of this island. It was certainly that of the dead but not in a faded, hopeless fashion, but as a treasure trove of haunted sites where the temporal world slows and we glimpse something of the lives, deaths, passions, hopes, frustrations, injustices of other times.
Within such cracking of the prison of space and time implied by Ghost-lore, there can be found the understanding, the enlightenment even, that the self is only a shadow of the true Self; that our spirit’s true home is with the collective storehouse of all spirits, Prakriti, or Brahma, the a divine self beyond our earthly self.
The blanking out of the ego brings a peace so profound and deep that one can never leave it and so initiation is offered into the spheres beyond, where the consciousness of the incarnate dissolves in communion with the eternal stream of the ancestors circling Absolute Reality.
Although I did not realise it at first, over last summer I understood what Sir Parnassus had tried to teach me: communing with the phantoms on this mist-haunted island is to commune with the Shakti within and without – the Goddess of this land and with her counterpart, the Father of the dead and Lord of the sun-bathed fields...
Before that understanding and communion could occur, there were many adventures that I engaged in. I did not seek these experiences out. All I required was a place where I could scribe the history of my Uncle’s enlightenment. Initially I found this in the ‘Magazines Hotel’ where I passed hours in one of the back rooms engaged in work; there were many distractions, notably in the form of the other clients. One such individual, who had goaded me with the label ‘homeless’ (I see this as a mark of esteem rather than a source of amusement or contempt) even reacted to my claim that I was resident there, by arguing that the establishment no longer accepts overnight guests. I am at a loss to explain why my domestic arrangements may be of interest to anyone – the devil is certainly not in these details! It is true that I am not an overnight guest at the Mags. I chose to spend my night hours engaged in deep meditation whilst communing with nature. The frailty of the human form demands alas, periods of ‘dis-engagence’, which may occur whilst I sit, composing my thoughts in a quiet corner of the pub when not committing them to paper.
As I indicated in my last post, it was not just the living patrons of the hostelry that conspired to draw me from my literary labours; there were other presences in that building, soaked into the wood, seeped into the stone. I could sense them as I wrote and even when as I was forced to converse. Although I sought to leave them be, it was the power that bound them to the hotel which was drawn to be, magnifying the stain the otherworld had left within me as it did so.
To any who are new to these teachings, please consult my previous posts which form an account of an investigation into a haunted house, carried out by this author and some assistants in a Northern English town during the summer 2010.
Like any spot that is long-settled, yet also lightly-populated, even lonely, the Downs and the Vale had their share of hauntings. Shadows cast by the accidents and tragedies of rural life had, through the long ebb and flow of the seasons, blended into the rustling woods and mossy rocks that bordered the flowing waters. Perhaps a lonely traveler, passing late over the moors, picking their cautious way back through the steep, wooded hillsides to the comfort of the village inn, might catch a glimpse of a pale, grief-stricken figure looking from across an abandoned mill pond; they might hear faint voices, their strands of song splitting faintly from the wind, or perhaps they may catch a whisper from the creaking bows of an oak, but to an inhabitant of the vale, these shades were as much part of the landscape as the stones and trees that they had known all their lives.
So I wrote about the haunted Wessex that my maternal Uncle, Sir Parnassus Mang, explored at the end of the last century but one. I composed these lines shortly after my experience in the house at St Hilary’s in my hometown of Wallasey on the Wirral peninsula.
I was in India, a country from which I had never thought to return and which I still miss – how I pine for thee, Mother of my Sadhana (spiritual path), Mother of Samadhi (an experience of enlightenment) - when I received a vision in which I was instructed to commit Mang’s experiences to paper. I began composing what I could recall of his deeds although as I progressed I found new memories and insights surfaced into awareness.
Several drafts were started, one even completed, before I finally heeded the growing urge to return to the land in which my ancestor found his true Self.
(These ‘adventures’ are now available as ‘Binder of Bone, Keeper of Corn’, in down-load form from Amazon, ed.)
It was hard returning home from a land where amid the frenzied commercialism, the desperate poverty and self-absorbed wealth, there were poverty-stricken saints, whose chants billowed forth on palls of incense from shrines; where the endless, arid plains and crammed, squalid cities were relieved by sacred hills and holy rivers that swept the devote beyond the glare and the stink and the choking dust into luminous contemplation of the Absolute resting within and beyond the world of sense.
It seemed appropriate that, as Sir Parnassus oft reminded me, the Romans had conceived of our Albion as an Island of the Dead. Here, at the edge of the world, fallen Saturn was bound. It was to this island that boatmen would ferry the souls of the deceased and the voice of Dis Pater could be heard, calling all to their beyond .
It was after the investigation of that house by the church and after the experiences which unfolded from it, that I began to think anew of this island. It was certainly that of the dead but not in a faded, hopeless fashion, but as a treasure trove of haunted sites where the temporal world slows and we glimpse something of the lives, deaths, passions, hopes, frustrations, injustices of other times.
Within such cracking of the prison of space and time implied by Ghost-lore, there can be found the understanding, the enlightenment even, that the self is only a shadow of the true Self; that our spirit’s true home is with the collective storehouse of all spirits, Prakriti, or Brahma, the a divine self beyond our earthly self.
The blanking out of the ego brings a peace so profound and deep that one can never leave it and so initiation is offered into the spheres beyond, where the consciousness of the incarnate dissolves in communion with the eternal stream of the ancestors circling Absolute Reality.
Although I did not realise it at first, over last summer I understood what Sir Parnassus had tried to teach me: communing with the phantoms on this mist-haunted island is to commune with the Shakti within and without – the Goddess of this land and with her counterpart, the Father of the dead and Lord of the sun-bathed fields...
Before that understanding and communion could occur, there were many adventures that I engaged in. I did not seek these experiences out. All I required was a place where I could scribe the history of my Uncle’s enlightenment. Initially I found this in the ‘Magazines Hotel’ where I passed hours in one of the back rooms engaged in work; there were many distractions, notably in the form of the other clients. One such individual, who had goaded me with the label ‘homeless’ (I see this as a mark of esteem rather than a source of amusement or contempt) even reacted to my claim that I was resident there, by arguing that the establishment no longer accepts overnight guests. I am at a loss to explain why my domestic arrangements may be of interest to anyone – the devil is certainly not in these details! It is true that I am not an overnight guest at the Mags. I chose to spend my night hours engaged in deep meditation whilst communing with nature. The frailty of the human form demands alas, periods of ‘dis-engagence’, which may occur whilst I sit, composing my thoughts in a quiet corner of the pub when not committing them to paper.
As I indicated in my last post, it was not just the living patrons of the hostelry that conspired to draw me from my literary labours; there were other presences in that building, soaked into the wood, seeped into the stone. I could sense them as I wrote and even when as I was forced to converse. Although I sought to leave them be, it was the power that bound them to the hotel which was drawn to be, magnifying the stain the otherworld had left within me as it did so.
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