Welcome again to my teachings, if this is your first encounter with my work,you should start at the first post and then proceed at your own pace chronologically through the subsequent. Should you reach this point, you will be the first; accepting of course my acolyte who dutifully commits my thoughts to computer.
I am communicating the decades of wisdom I have acquired, through a recount of an investigation of a haunted house in the North of England, during the summer of 2010.
There is a tendency amongst those who enunciate upon spiritual matters, toward seemingly vacuous declarations; ‘all you need is love’ and that sort of thing. That statement may well be true enough on many different and apparently contradictory levels. Also, there is a tendency toward monism – the idea that one figure is the Absolute, or ushers the initiate toward it. As a consequence of such apparent simplifications, acolytes of such schools may be left with the impression that there are certain, exclusive persons, places and experiences which are sacred whilst all else is profane, heretical or unworthy of meditation.
What you, my dear followers, should now be apprehending, is that one should never exclude any experience, situation or person from the apprehension of the divine. Even if one is following a monotheistic religion, it is possible to accept the multi-faceted way in which one will approach one’s deity.
Existence, you see, is an initiation. If we approach our lives as a ongoing initiation, we shall encounter many expressions of the divine in the physical, intellectual and spiritual worlds. We will understand that there is never any period when our initiation has ceased, even in Samadhi perpetual; whilst my true self remains in Samadhi, from where my intellect and senses are yoked even as they persist with the world, revelations of the divine nature of the universe constantly unfold around me.
Such realisations were uncovered within my consciousness as I battled with the residual, egotistical feelings of fear, during the investigation in the haunted house on the sandstone ridge.
Any who doubts the practical benefits of yoga, should try navigating sunken tunnels beneath a cemetery; whilst treading the trail of the ghoul, I gave thanks for my practice over the years. There was a tense moment when my hips were pinched between two of the stones, heaped across the tunnel but a slight wiggle allowed me to heave myself up and out onto a rough sandstone floor.
I detected an abysmal atmosphere about this space even before I flashed the torch around. It was not the choking quality of the air which turned my limbs to lead and which drew bile into my mouth, nor was it what the light revealed in the room. It was an anxiety that gnawed into me from some as of yet, unseen source.
Again and again I called inwardly to the Goddess and with great effort I visualised her wasted skin, the scabbed blood washed anew from her tusked mouth and with Her aid, I opened myself to the dread atmosphere, welcoming it into my life; no reassuring detachment arose, instead I was cornered within myself, conscious of my body and infected with feelings of dread originating beyond my own consciousness.
It was with trembling hands that I scanned the torch from side-to-side, revealing a space carved some twenty by thirty feet into the stone. Assorted objects were revealed, the torch passing over before hastily focusing on a person sat upright in a chair. It was positioned to my right and as the beam picked out a gaping skeleton, clad in mildewing fragments of finery I felt an initial relief. As I examined the ornate chair, I began to sense that its occupant was somehow still alive and regarding this intruder from the realm of the sun. An ornate, gilt frame stood on a table beside the chair and strangely, there the withered remains of a sapling in a large pot was positioned just behind.
As I could not stand, I dragged the torch onto a table in the centre of the room. Here a smaller, incomplete skeleton, possibly that of a child, was surrounded by what appeared to be tools of dissection. As I looked upon this spectacle with burgeoning horror, I apprehended a spotted, distorted quality to the back wall of the space. It was when I directed the light specifically upon it that I realised it was composed of bones, all meshed together into a makeshift screen.
‘What can you see?’ Aquinas hissed from behind the stones.
I did not reply. Somewhere beyond that wall of dead, there was a slow dripping. It had been constant but I had only just attended to it. Despite the horrors displayed before, I was drawn to the bone screen. Since first setting foot on the hill, had I not imagined a space opening up beneath me? Did not the draughts pass, forward and back through the house, along the tunnel? (Was this effect really due to the natural play of air through multiple shafts peppering the hillside as Noz suggested?)
Although mounting dread threatened to overwhelm my physical form, my true self, prostrate before the image of the Terrible Goddess, offering myself to the service of nature, sensed that there was a presence behind that bone heap; a presence which drew the winds and the rains down the tunnel, which willed the corpses down from their rest...
A grating sound behind me caused my corporeal form to jump and whip around in time to see Aquinas forcing his way through the boulders. Thankfully the pile held as his broad frame twisted through and he kneeled alongside me, his face washed with sweat and wrinkled with disgust at the smell. He must have forced a larger gap through the stones for stronger wisps of air trailed passed us, setting a minute rattle ringing from the bones beyond us. We sat and the motion ceased and for a minute all was still and then the air returned in the opposite direction, bearing an odour of damp and decay as it passed.
‘It’s him, the Reverend,’ Aquinas said, ‘the one who went mad, this is where he ended up. This is the dark heart of the house.’
Remembering himself, Aquinas produced some sort of camera and began to film this space. There was a triumphant gleam in his eyes - clearly he did not feel the emotional pressure which weighed upon me.
Feeling an irritation weigh creep upon me with my young companion and his obsession with filming everything, I returned to the primary source of my mediumistic ability, that of psycho-audiencing! If sight fails, listen and listen to what speaks within! I focused my awareness on the dripping sound and the intermittent rattle of the bones in the breeze.
I imagined still the Dark Goddess, feasting on her young and the dripping tapped on, louder perhaps, as if summoning me toward its origins; the rattle swayed around me, as if it would smother me and take me into itself...with such impressions, the dread returned in the form of a terror of the sudden plummet into a chasm and a leaden dragging at my limbs.
I became conscious of my own pulse, its subtle crunch aligning with that outer rhythm; the twin beats lulled the terror and I could have sat, peacefully as the dark, chilly depths drank of my leaking blood.
This post started with the claim that an initiate’s work is never complete; no vision of divinity ever total or complete, there is always more to explore and so it happened that whilst I sat thus, indifferent to my physical death in that darkness, the Goddess did not abandon me.
The idea that the damp indifference of the engulfing stone and the vast, crushing sea that thundered onto the shore below, were horrifying was not in my own awareness, I understood it was another’s as easily as if they had spoken it aloud. I sensed an awareness of the indifference of the elements, the glee in the winter wind’s whistle around the flesh, or in fire’s ravenous gorge on all that is plump, soft and moist and whilst I welcomed such indifference, there was one unseen who was terrified by it.
With a savage grunt, the hideous form of devouring Nature burst into mind, her mouth gaping, spilling glistening shreds of man across her shrivelled skin...and I laughed as I willed myself unto her jaws... and as the rattle of the bones became a choked wheeze and the drip, the slap of wet flesh on stone, the one whose dread haunted this place manifested. His voice spat into my ear, and his slick form hauled itself from the deep dark...
Sunday, 19 December 2010
Friday, 10 December 2010
The spirited man does not heed the dictates of common sense
Welcome again to my teachings, if this is your first encounter with my work,you should start at the first post and then proceed at your own pace chronologically through the subsequent. Should you reach this point, you will be the first; accepting of course my acolyte who dutifully commits my thoughts to computer.
I am communicating the decades of wisdom I have acquired, through a recount of an investigation of a haunted house in the North of England, during the summer of 2010.
I illustrated the value of treating one’s visions as real in my last post. It takes a while to cultivate the appropriate relaxation of one’s faculties which allow impressions from beyond the Ahamkara (the ego) and the unconscious shadow it casts, to arise. It takes longer yet to be able to yield to such experiences without falling asleep or seeking to consciously intervene and colonise them. Now that I sufficiently illustrated the insight which can be derived from such states of mind, I hope my students are inspired to devote themselves to training their consciousness.
It was no coincidence that the trance-induced vision - my instinctive apprehension of a space gaping beneath the hill - was confirmed by the actions of Crass and the other young man in the cellar; whilst I sat in quiet absorption, they had shoved much of the bric-a-brac aside and a hole had been forced through the plasterboard and wood bordering the upper part of the sandstone cellar. Rather than revealing more sandstone, the young men had uncovered a cramped hole gaping in the rock, although not before the subtle powers of the enlightened had discovered it first!
Aquinas expressed some displeasure at this destruction in the cellar, however as it afforded him an opportunity to use his torch, he soon perked up and discovered that the hole was in fact the opening of a dank passage way that fell slightly down toward the churchyard wall. A rank smell greeted us from that orifice, issued on sluggish air which dragged itself forth, the exhalation of the under earth. All of us knew that one should enter that space, yet even my own heart quailed at the thought of such an act. The young men felt more strongly than I did and we returned to the living room to consider our next action.
Common-sense dictated that none such enter there; we also had evidence of subsidence under the graves. Common-sense however is bred into us to allow us to negotiate the dangers of physical and social life; where matters of the spirit are concerned then common-sense should be overridden by the clarion call of one’s true self. Had not the spirits gestured under the staircase, in the very direction of this tunnel? Was not the wind itself draw down it, toward the heart of the hill? And above all, when one’s soul quails, is one not in the very presence of the Almighty as It ferments new possibilities from the ashes of what once was?
Once I announced my attention to proceed into the fissure and see how far it led, a look of relief came over the face of Aquinas who claimed he would follow behind me. Nozz was eager to proceed too and suggested that a rope should be employed to secure one another lest the floor should give way. Obviously we had no rope amongst our belongings. There were probably all manner of E-Ropes or virtual ropes on the computers but nothing serviceable for our needs, so the beds were stripped and sheets tied together around us.
Each of the young men shook my hand before I hunched and clambered into the jagged fissure. I had to contort myself somewhat, the stone seeking to snare my skin; certainly the sheet-rope was caught, halting me and it was only with a deft twist and a determined thrust down, that I was able to drag myself into the hole. I had the torch in one hand and by its light the sparkle of the minerals was revealed in the rock along with smooth, sweeping indentations, suggesting that it was man-made. Despite the dryness of the sandstone, the dank smell intensified as I dragged myself along the constricted passage. Sharp, crumbing sand scraped at my skin, drawing prickles of blood, arousing a fear that the earth itself was sucking on me. Calling inwardly upon the fearsome Goddess, such feelings were suppressed and happily, after twenty feet or so, the roof rose and I was able to crawl on all fours. Behind I could hear Aquinas shoving his frame through the gap. I reckoned we were under the garden now. Thirty feet on again, still downward, and I passed under a crumbling, partially-collapsed section which I understood to be where the wall of the churchyard stood. Behind, the two now gasped and groaned and I felt the sheet pull taut. Ahead, the air stirred and caressed me. A draught must have found access via a crack or fissure ahead. Although my followers were mere feet behind and I could hear them whispering to each other as the sheet now dug into me, I paused, feeling strangely isolated, conscious of the vast quantity of rock above and around me, and the space below, into which the draught passed and from which it was exhaled back.
Aquinas and the other dragged themselves along rapidly until I could feel their hot breath issuing around me as the sheets loosened. We crawled onward, the way opening up now and as we passed roughly forty feet along the tunnel, I sensed a gap above me. I paused and tentatively shone the torch up, illuminating a tunnel a foot wide, crudely hacked into the rock. I leaned up to it, the light uncovering a dark mesh of roots and packed soil beyond the sandstone and I understood some way above, a grave stood on the surface of the earth. Aquinas demanded to know why I had stopped and replying, I felt a chill draught descend. It joined the general current and I sensed that a host of barely perceptible airs descended from other, similar monuments above. For a moment the air noticeably stilled and there was a faint rattling before me and the draught returned, drifting passed to ascend to the graves beyond.
‘There has to be an opening on the other side of the hill, there has to be,’ I heard Nozz saying to Aquinas but as my body complained, I pressed onwards, still on all fours, rather than reply. I concede it was a struggle to detach myself from the complaints in my shoulders, elbow and back. The tightening of the rope and the muttering behind indicated the others were becoming similarly reluctant to proceed.
A further ten, fifteen feet further on, past another cavity hacked into the roof, the passageway widened. It was still impossible to stand but there was now a broad space culminating in a pile of sandstone boulders. In the torch light their blackened, smoothed shapes resembled deformed heads heaped before me, grinning, winking and tusked. I stretched out a hand as the two pressed close by me. The draught was drawn into and expelled from beyond these rocks. The stagnant odour of the air was stronger here and I could tell that the other two, with no experience of the subcontinent found it deeply unnerving. Leaning inward in search of a wider space between the stones, my joints cracked and I almost felt my age. The nagging fatigue returned like a hand that would gather me and usher me back to the house with its comforts. For a moment I nearly fainted and I was only able to continue by picturing an orb of moonlight beyond the stones toward which I reached out a hand as if I would plunge into it.
Revived slightly, I felt hot in this space with the three of us pressed together and a sweat broke across my brow as Aquinas’ phone commenced a rhythmic beeping. Finding a gap between the stones, I reached my arm through. My fingers waved in cool air. With my other arm, I then passed the torch under so that its light glared through the heap of stones.
‘There’s a bigger space,’ I snapped at the two who protested against the dark and casting the sheet from me (what help would it have provided if the floor or roof gave?), I contorted my body into the gap.
I am communicating the decades of wisdom I have acquired, through a recount of an investigation of a haunted house in the North of England, during the summer of 2010.
I illustrated the value of treating one’s visions as real in my last post. It takes a while to cultivate the appropriate relaxation of one’s faculties which allow impressions from beyond the Ahamkara (the ego) and the unconscious shadow it casts, to arise. It takes longer yet to be able to yield to such experiences without falling asleep or seeking to consciously intervene and colonise them. Now that I sufficiently illustrated the insight which can be derived from such states of mind, I hope my students are inspired to devote themselves to training their consciousness.
It was no coincidence that the trance-induced vision - my instinctive apprehension of a space gaping beneath the hill - was confirmed by the actions of Crass and the other young man in the cellar; whilst I sat in quiet absorption, they had shoved much of the bric-a-brac aside and a hole had been forced through the plasterboard and wood bordering the upper part of the sandstone cellar. Rather than revealing more sandstone, the young men had uncovered a cramped hole gaping in the rock, although not before the subtle powers of the enlightened had discovered it first!
Aquinas expressed some displeasure at this destruction in the cellar, however as it afforded him an opportunity to use his torch, he soon perked up and discovered that the hole was in fact the opening of a dank passage way that fell slightly down toward the churchyard wall. A rank smell greeted us from that orifice, issued on sluggish air which dragged itself forth, the exhalation of the under earth. All of us knew that one should enter that space, yet even my own heart quailed at the thought of such an act. The young men felt more strongly than I did and we returned to the living room to consider our next action.
Common-sense dictated that none such enter there; we also had evidence of subsidence under the graves. Common-sense however is bred into us to allow us to negotiate the dangers of physical and social life; where matters of the spirit are concerned then common-sense should be overridden by the clarion call of one’s true self. Had not the spirits gestured under the staircase, in the very direction of this tunnel? Was not the wind itself draw down it, toward the heart of the hill? And above all, when one’s soul quails, is one not in the very presence of the Almighty as It ferments new possibilities from the ashes of what once was?
Once I announced my attention to proceed into the fissure and see how far it led, a look of relief came over the face of Aquinas who claimed he would follow behind me. Nozz was eager to proceed too and suggested that a rope should be employed to secure one another lest the floor should give way. Obviously we had no rope amongst our belongings. There were probably all manner of E-Ropes or virtual ropes on the computers but nothing serviceable for our needs, so the beds were stripped and sheets tied together around us.
Each of the young men shook my hand before I hunched and clambered into the jagged fissure. I had to contort myself somewhat, the stone seeking to snare my skin; certainly the sheet-rope was caught, halting me and it was only with a deft twist and a determined thrust down, that I was able to drag myself into the hole. I had the torch in one hand and by its light the sparkle of the minerals was revealed in the rock along with smooth, sweeping indentations, suggesting that it was man-made. Despite the dryness of the sandstone, the dank smell intensified as I dragged myself along the constricted passage. Sharp, crumbing sand scraped at my skin, drawing prickles of blood, arousing a fear that the earth itself was sucking on me. Calling inwardly upon the fearsome Goddess, such feelings were suppressed and happily, after twenty feet or so, the roof rose and I was able to crawl on all fours. Behind I could hear Aquinas shoving his frame through the gap. I reckoned we were under the garden now. Thirty feet on again, still downward, and I passed under a crumbling, partially-collapsed section which I understood to be where the wall of the churchyard stood. Behind, the two now gasped and groaned and I felt the sheet pull taut. Ahead, the air stirred and caressed me. A draught must have found access via a crack or fissure ahead. Although my followers were mere feet behind and I could hear them whispering to each other as the sheet now dug into me, I paused, feeling strangely isolated, conscious of the vast quantity of rock above and around me, and the space below, into which the draught passed and from which it was exhaled back.
Aquinas and the other dragged themselves along rapidly until I could feel their hot breath issuing around me as the sheets loosened. We crawled onward, the way opening up now and as we passed roughly forty feet along the tunnel, I sensed a gap above me. I paused and tentatively shone the torch up, illuminating a tunnel a foot wide, crudely hacked into the rock. I leaned up to it, the light uncovering a dark mesh of roots and packed soil beyond the sandstone and I understood some way above, a grave stood on the surface of the earth. Aquinas demanded to know why I had stopped and replying, I felt a chill draught descend. It joined the general current and I sensed that a host of barely perceptible airs descended from other, similar monuments above. For a moment the air noticeably stilled and there was a faint rattling before me and the draught returned, drifting passed to ascend to the graves beyond.
‘There has to be an opening on the other side of the hill, there has to be,’ I heard Nozz saying to Aquinas but as my body complained, I pressed onwards, still on all fours, rather than reply. I concede it was a struggle to detach myself from the complaints in my shoulders, elbow and back. The tightening of the rope and the muttering behind indicated the others were becoming similarly reluctant to proceed.
A further ten, fifteen feet further on, past another cavity hacked into the roof, the passageway widened. It was still impossible to stand but there was now a broad space culminating in a pile of sandstone boulders. In the torch light their blackened, smoothed shapes resembled deformed heads heaped before me, grinning, winking and tusked. I stretched out a hand as the two pressed close by me. The draught was drawn into and expelled from beyond these rocks. The stagnant odour of the air was stronger here and I could tell that the other two, with no experience of the subcontinent found it deeply unnerving. Leaning inward in search of a wider space between the stones, my joints cracked and I almost felt my age. The nagging fatigue returned like a hand that would gather me and usher me back to the house with its comforts. For a moment I nearly fainted and I was only able to continue by picturing an orb of moonlight beyond the stones toward which I reached out a hand as if I would plunge into it.
Revived slightly, I felt hot in this space with the three of us pressed together and a sweat broke across my brow as Aquinas’ phone commenced a rhythmic beeping. Finding a gap between the stones, I reached my arm through. My fingers waved in cool air. With my other arm, I then passed the torch under so that its light glared through the heap of stones.
‘There’s a bigger space,’ I snapped at the two who protested against the dark and casting the sheet from me (what help would it have provided if the floor or roof gave?), I contorted my body into the gap.
Saturday, 4 December 2010
Plunging into Eternal Peace
Welcome again to my teachings, if this is your first encounter with my work, then you should start at the first post and then proceed at your pace through chronologically. Should you reach this point, you will be the first; accepting of course my acolyte who dutifully commits my thoughts to computer.
I am communicating the decades of wisdom I have acquired, by a recount of an investigation of a haunted house in the North of England, during the summer of 2010.
“My soul’s fire fades to ash
Strength departs the heart
When I behold thee, Lord…”
...the words of Arjuna to Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, my translation. My encounter with the Goddess in her hideous aspect, during a vision awoken by the Moon, brought these sacred words to mind. An encounter with the divine may be terrifying, just as terror may lead us toward the Absolute; as illustrated by my enlightened acceptance of Mother Nature’s impersonal aspect ushered a vision of apparent peace and love into my consciousness.
Why should a universe which is unforgiving enough on a physical level, communicate through such terrifying images? Is it an abstract adaption of mortality? A mystical memento mori which offers us a chance to accept our death, the Samadhi perpetual? If that is so, then how blessed are we to be offered the chance of preparing to let our temporal selves go? How the universe tempers its brutality with compassion!
I have previously described my summer’s activities as a quest to prevent Saturn strangling and devouring Shakti! What is Shakti? Simply put, Shakti is the power which animates the world, it is the divine principle buried within matter. The Shakti can be personified as beautiful and nurturing or as this hideous, monstrous mother who gorges on the live flesh of her young. If the latter is not feared but loved, the blows that lay one accepted as allowing another to live; if she is regarded as an expression of universal love then we may come to terms with the nature of our lives and our psyche is ushered unto the vessel which will bear us unto the Isles of the Blessed.
As to why physical pain must accompany existence and its attendant death, I cannot say; there are many who would say that death and loss are suffering enough. There are some who delight in pain one way or another deluding themselves into thinking they have mastered life. Perhaps we should suppose that those who accept the reality of suffering and death whilst assisting in the relief of others are those who shall master our true lives among the beyond the celestial sphere.
I can however, reveal a little more about the meaning of that curious phrase (Saturn strangling etc.) to adepts who by now should have gained some understanding. The divine power (Shakti-Tara, or Sophia if you will) which animates all life and which calls upon us to escape our dependence on physical existence in favour of the spiritual, was under threat from ‘Saturn’.
My literary work, as I have been compelled to call it, has been spent chronicling the encounters my Maternal Uncle – Sir Parnassus Mang – experienced with a giant in the south-west of England. This giant had both a physical and spiritual manifestation (in the form of a chalk giant on a hillside as a life-giving power and as a psycho-pompous – a guide of the dead, respectively) – and it was known locally as ‘Saturn’ after the Golden Age, over which Saturn / Chronos presided. Saturn thus possesses positive and negative associations according to Classical mythology: he devoured his own children to perpetuate his reign, before being overthrown and bound within the underworld, which was sighted in Britain, according to Plutarch.
To name the phenomenon which he encountered in the hills of the West Country ‘Saturn’, was to personify it without limiting its influence upon the land; my maternal Uncle wisely identified the giant with Krishna in his loving and terrible aspect, seeing any power emanating from ‘Saturn’ as ultimately derived from the Soul Supreme, the embodiment of the Absolute. His adventures can be read in the novel form available to read on your computer as ‘Binder of Bone, Keeper of Corn’.
Now I have not been rambling in my discourse so far (as suggested by my acolyte’s impertinent wife). Nor have my words have not been carefully chosen. That would be absurd! An enlightened man allows his words to well spontaneously from the well-spring of wisdom within.
The investigation of the house at St Hilary’s first attuned me to the threat which I faced across the summer just passed, although how far the visions which befell me in the house was generated by my own soul, how much it was specific to the house and how much universal, I cannot say; indeed as all is ‘Brahma’, or a refraction of the light eternal, I think it little matters.
My reward for accepting the Dark Mother seemed to be the vivid impression of a young man smiling from the sun. The youth’s features reminded me of a friend from my days in India. Just as the smell of smoke took me back to the funeral pyres on the riverbank, where I used to observe my devotions, so that vision brought to mind the Ashram, where we would greet the sun, climbing over the ancient temple. Sadly, that young man died on the subcontinent. I used to think that he had gained his enlightenment before he entered Samadhi although his silence in later years suggested that perhaps he was still bound to Samsara; however that vision in the stairwell persuaded me otherwise and reinvigorated my mood which had become rather melancholic.
Once I was able to descend and face the young men after these visions, I found them dining upon a late meal of oven chips and instant noodles. Once done, I agreed to sit in séance again with one young man stood on the landing above me and another on the stairs below me, observing proceedings. Although Crass and one of the others were concluding some sort of investigation in the cellar which involved all manner of crashing and bashing, I quickly slipped into trance.
I imagined the full moon, rising over the house and over the church, draping its veil of silver across the gravestones and I saw also the ocean spreading beyond. I became a wave, rising to draw he moonlight into my crest and so shining I passed across the waters. I became aware of a light in the distance. It was frail, like a candle atop a hulking outcrop, a fire on a distant shore.
Smoke then wafted around me and I was no longer in the sea but sat on the shore with a person, pale with ash, alongside me. I felt a peace from that one and I was back once again with the guru who had nurtured me on the banks of the sacred waters and through him, I plunged into the peace of the line of gurus who had guided one another, back through the ages, back unto their source, the All-Father, Krishna himself. A meditation upon such ideas can be most rewarding, even attuning you to the Divine source of all peace.
From my vantage point of calm detachment I perceived that three other persons were emerging from the gloom. The light had grown now into a fire and I they were silhouetted beyond it. As my awareness alighted upon them, the fire diminished and they drew me back to the house where I beheld the three positioned upon the stairs, each pointing down.
My accomplices perceived these indistinct figures too and were busy filming, blessedly in silence. There were several other shadowy presences, smaller, withered and equally featureless emerging onto the stairs. There was an uncomfortable sense of revulsion accompanying these husks, it was not a feeling from within but rather one that was imposed, rather like overhearing particular unpleasant discourse in a public place (a phenomena that I was alas familiar with since accompanying the young men to the Cheese.)
The manifestations overlapped a particularly calamitous crash from below, followed by Crass’ cry of, ‘I knew there was a space behind here, it’s a false wall.’
Even before he called, I had detected a space under the stairs; the spirits pointed it out to me and the smaller shadows emerged from it. I sensed that it was a cramped passage, bored into the rock, leading away from the house toward the graveyard. I can testify that a breeze trickled past me at the moment, drawn down toward that space, that space which inhaled the salt winds and the storm-charged rains and into which the dead of the graveyard tumbled from their coffins...
I am communicating the decades of wisdom I have acquired, by a recount of an investigation of a haunted house in the North of England, during the summer of 2010.
“My soul’s fire fades to ash
Strength departs the heart
When I behold thee, Lord…”
...the words of Arjuna to Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita, my translation. My encounter with the Goddess in her hideous aspect, during a vision awoken by the Moon, brought these sacred words to mind. An encounter with the divine may be terrifying, just as terror may lead us toward the Absolute; as illustrated by my enlightened acceptance of Mother Nature’s impersonal aspect ushered a vision of apparent peace and love into my consciousness.
Why should a universe which is unforgiving enough on a physical level, communicate through such terrifying images? Is it an abstract adaption of mortality? A mystical memento mori which offers us a chance to accept our death, the Samadhi perpetual? If that is so, then how blessed are we to be offered the chance of preparing to let our temporal selves go? How the universe tempers its brutality with compassion!
I have previously described my summer’s activities as a quest to prevent Saturn strangling and devouring Shakti! What is Shakti? Simply put, Shakti is the power which animates the world, it is the divine principle buried within matter. The Shakti can be personified as beautiful and nurturing or as this hideous, monstrous mother who gorges on the live flesh of her young. If the latter is not feared but loved, the blows that lay one accepted as allowing another to live; if she is regarded as an expression of universal love then we may come to terms with the nature of our lives and our psyche is ushered unto the vessel which will bear us unto the Isles of the Blessed.
As to why physical pain must accompany existence and its attendant death, I cannot say; there are many who would say that death and loss are suffering enough. There are some who delight in pain one way or another deluding themselves into thinking they have mastered life. Perhaps we should suppose that those who accept the reality of suffering and death whilst assisting in the relief of others are those who shall master our true lives among the beyond the celestial sphere.
I can however, reveal a little more about the meaning of that curious phrase (Saturn strangling etc.) to adepts who by now should have gained some understanding. The divine power (Shakti-Tara, or Sophia if you will) which animates all life and which calls upon us to escape our dependence on physical existence in favour of the spiritual, was under threat from ‘Saturn’.
What is Saturn?
My literary work, as I have been compelled to call it, has been spent chronicling the encounters my Maternal Uncle – Sir Parnassus Mang – experienced with a giant in the south-west of England. This giant had both a physical and spiritual manifestation (in the form of a chalk giant on a hillside as a life-giving power and as a psycho-pompous – a guide of the dead, respectively) – and it was known locally as ‘Saturn’ after the Golden Age, over which Saturn / Chronos presided. Saturn thus possesses positive and negative associations according to Classical mythology: he devoured his own children to perpetuate his reign, before being overthrown and bound within the underworld, which was sighted in Britain, according to Plutarch.
To name the phenomenon which he encountered in the hills of the West Country ‘Saturn’, was to personify it without limiting its influence upon the land; my maternal Uncle wisely identified the giant with Krishna in his loving and terrible aspect, seeing any power emanating from ‘Saturn’ as ultimately derived from the Soul Supreme, the embodiment of the Absolute. His adventures can be read in the novel form available to read on your computer as ‘Binder of Bone, Keeper of Corn’.
Now I have not been rambling in my discourse so far (as suggested by my acolyte’s impertinent wife). Nor have my words have not been carefully chosen. That would be absurd! An enlightened man allows his words to well spontaneously from the well-spring of wisdom within.
The investigation of the house at St Hilary’s first attuned me to the threat which I faced across the summer just passed, although how far the visions which befell me in the house was generated by my own soul, how much it was specific to the house and how much universal, I cannot say; indeed as all is ‘Brahma’, or a refraction of the light eternal, I think it little matters.
My reward for accepting the Dark Mother seemed to be the vivid impression of a young man smiling from the sun. The youth’s features reminded me of a friend from my days in India. Just as the smell of smoke took me back to the funeral pyres on the riverbank, where I used to observe my devotions, so that vision brought to mind the Ashram, where we would greet the sun, climbing over the ancient temple. Sadly, that young man died on the subcontinent. I used to think that he had gained his enlightenment before he entered Samadhi although his silence in later years suggested that perhaps he was still bound to Samsara; however that vision in the stairwell persuaded me otherwise and reinvigorated my mood which had become rather melancholic.
Once I was able to descend and face the young men after these visions, I found them dining upon a late meal of oven chips and instant noodles. Once done, I agreed to sit in séance again with one young man stood on the landing above me and another on the stairs below me, observing proceedings. Although Crass and one of the others were concluding some sort of investigation in the cellar which involved all manner of crashing and bashing, I quickly slipped into trance.
I imagined the full moon, rising over the house and over the church, draping its veil of silver across the gravestones and I saw also the ocean spreading beyond. I became a wave, rising to draw he moonlight into my crest and so shining I passed across the waters. I became aware of a light in the distance. It was frail, like a candle atop a hulking outcrop, a fire on a distant shore.
Smoke then wafted around me and I was no longer in the sea but sat on the shore with a person, pale with ash, alongside me. I felt a peace from that one and I was back once again with the guru who had nurtured me on the banks of the sacred waters and through him, I plunged into the peace of the line of gurus who had guided one another, back through the ages, back unto their source, the All-Father, Krishna himself. A meditation upon such ideas can be most rewarding, even attuning you to the Divine source of all peace.
From my vantage point of calm detachment I perceived that three other persons were emerging from the gloom. The light had grown now into a fire and I they were silhouetted beyond it. As my awareness alighted upon them, the fire diminished and they drew me back to the house where I beheld the three positioned upon the stairs, each pointing down.
My accomplices perceived these indistinct figures too and were busy filming, blessedly in silence. There were several other shadowy presences, smaller, withered and equally featureless emerging onto the stairs. There was an uncomfortable sense of revulsion accompanying these husks, it was not a feeling from within but rather one that was imposed, rather like overhearing particular unpleasant discourse in a public place (a phenomena that I was alas familiar with since accompanying the young men to the Cheese.)
The manifestations overlapped a particularly calamitous crash from below, followed by Crass’ cry of, ‘I knew there was a space behind here, it’s a false wall.’
Even before he called, I had detected a space under the stairs; the spirits pointed it out to me and the smaller shadows emerged from it. I sensed that it was a cramped passage, bored into the rock, leading away from the house toward the graveyard. I can testify that a breeze trickled past me at the moment, drawn down toward that space, that space which inhaled the salt winds and the storm-charged rains and into which the dead of the graveyard tumbled from their coffins...
Saturday, 27 November 2010
A beatific vision born of a willing sacrifice
I have been recounting my adventures last summer (2010), investigating a haunted house in the Northern town of Wallasey. If you wish to read of how this came about, return to my first post.
Once I had the found the names and the key dates of the last Reverend’s children– the pillared archway of anyone’s temporal existence – I was determined to make contact with their spirits should they reside within the place.
Back at the house I sat in séance again, the effect of which was to reignite the knocking noises. They erupted downstairs and then climbed towards us, thumping through the floor boards toward the bedroom I had taken as my own. Closer they came and I mapped their approach. Past the clock, past the picture of North Wales, up to the threshold of my door. The sounds paused and I sensed a presence hovered there before the noises retreated again. Of the young men, it was Nozz who reacted first.
‘I saw it,’ he cried from the landing, ‘I saw it at that door.’
After much excited shouting and what not, Nozz described a ‘thin, jerky thing, it moved or scuttled, crab-like and then it just vanished.’
Attempts to recreate the experience failed and as we were all in thrall to the cameras, it was collectively decreed that we should return to the public house, leaving the equipment running. Our trek downhill was fuelled by an argument between Nozz and Crass. The latter claimed he was seeking clarification of any factors which might rationalise the other’s sighting. Nozz responded with some vigour, as if he were being accused of hysteria and we attracted some looks as we re-entered the establishment. Indeed, Aquinas was even required to create a fiction to account for the argument – our ruse, to fool the staff and regulars at the pub was that I had recently purchased property in the area and that they were a work gang who were renovating it. I’m not sure how convincing this was, yes, they all wore boiler suits but there was no evidence of labour staining them. Anyhow, the mood of the young men had deteriorated further. They drank quickly and drunkenness was afflicting them. Even myself, with my detachment from my cravings, failed to keep up. I sought to teach them the futility of submitting to such cravings but I may have been lecturing animals. I shall assert again, my mind and spirit are free from any craving save for that of the liberation of all, my body balances my outpourings of wisdom with a penchant for alcohol (as I am attuned to the Soul Supreme, my body can occasionally indulge it’s residual attachments whilst my mind remains ensconced within the cerulean Heaven of perpetual contemplation of the Absolute) and also occasionally, products that emit smoke – as my words wing upwards to the delight of the gods, so may palls of smoke guide them on their way.
Each time we resolved to leave the pub, another round would appear from one of our number, chaining us to the place yet longer. It was past eight o’clock before we were invited to leave. The argument over what should constitute ‘tea’ was deemed threatening and liable to spill into violence by the landlord. It appeared that Moffy had acquired only breakfast things and alcohol on his morning expedition and now there was debate over whether we should cook for ourselves, buy a takeaway or visit a local restaurant. I had nothing to say on such matters. As an enlightened man I am happy to accept the offerings of devotees. As it happened, on this night I was happy to accept the offerings of drunken young men.
Although the day had been bright and the sun still hung over the Irish sea, casting a blinding, molten sheen over the Dee estuary, it was a relief to return to the gloomy interior of the house. It seemed at that moment the day’s light had been too bright, bleaching the land and all of us drank deeply of water once we returned. I feared dehydration may have set into our corporeal frames and I was not the only one who stripped to the waist in a bid to relieve the ache that throbbed within me. I might have swallowed sea water and been left to shrivel in the sun, such was the pain.
Of course, the ill temper, the drinking, the repulsion from sunlight are all manifestations of spirit activity. That is what I expect you, as a potential student, to have realised. Whilst it is fully appropriate to rush to a materialistic explanation for aches and pains, sniffles and pangs when one is bogged down with day to day life, when one is investigating the paranormal, one should interpret any such symptoms in a metaphysical framework first.
Again, I sought refuge in meditation, occupying the hollow space at the top of the stairs. Although I was rehydrated, the ache persisted within me and I envisioned the full moon that would have been visible ascending the sky over the Mersey. Visualising the moon is a highly effective meditation. Any who has travelled on foot at night, or by any other open air means - boat, camel, elephant for example - will understand what I mean when I say that the moon and the starry night can become companions to such a wayfarer. For time out of mind the moon has been referred to as ‘Traveller’s Joy’, a term which has esoteric as well as exoteric meanings. If you ever spend time under the moon, its radiance draws the gaze and awakens a sense of wonder, it impresses itself upon you, it has a presence. In future days and nights, it is easier to invoke the sight and the radiance in the mind’s eye and frequently, a vision will arise in response to such an invocation. At that moment, in-between the silent clock and the landing step, I accepted the light, allowing it to filter into every cell where it waxed into an expansive, radiant flowering that admitted itself throughout my corporeal frame and beyond, filling the entire stairwell. In such states, visions arise and if one allows oneself to accept this visitation from beyond, rather than seeking to shape or rationalise it, then one can be ushered into profound states of awareness. As I sat in the lotus position, pearly light erupting from my being, I beheld a young lady, robed in the billowing night sky and crowned with a circlet of roses, scattering rose petals toward me. Later I would recall the initial vision of the young girl framed in a jewel of light, if it were she again, she was the Tara – Lady Wisdom who bears all to the isles of blessed non-attachment. As the soft, velvety petals fluttered against me, I felt myself arise in a fresh, less tangible body, dawning from the corporeal. I found myself stood within light and all was strangely silent. The lady had passed from view however the petals descended, acquiring a darker, earthier hue as they expanded into fissured, cratered plates beneath me.
At that moment I heard a female voice whisper, ‘roots!’
It was a distinct and vicious utterance, again at my actual ear. Later, I have wondered if it was ‘rooks’ as in the Crow or even ‘rocks’, although I am certain it was ‘roots’ with its multitude of attendant meanings.
For a moment, a peripheral awareness surfaced. The sounds of the young men’s investigation persisted at some distance still, none were close by attempting to record my experiences. There was no trace of any spectres and I swiftly returned into the state of inner absorbtion.
I found that the dark, cratered matter now loomed around me. I could feel it beneath where I sat, cross-legged, upon its cold, leaden surface as minute shivers ground away within it. Around me, eight, smoothed boulders lay and I perceived that they were human skulls positioned in a circle. The light within me, expanded yet further, shooting into the sky where a bulbous chunk of matter descended, as if a rocky, misshapen headed regard me. I felt I was in the company of some titanic presence that lay behind the land, behind the sandstone bluff, the salt-rich winds, the low-lying and sea-choked marsh and which has already leaked into the house.
Traversing the radiance emanating from within, I felt an affinity with the monstrous presence that held me upon itself; I also perceived that within the fissures pitting the substance, there were trails left by the trickle of waters as they probed downward, seeking the mysterious centre. My astral body may have slipped down there certainly, I felt droplets, easing down the stone, until they squeezed between the rock and cold flesh and I understood that stuffed deep into the crevices were human bodies. I felt torrential rains guttering around the flesh and bones, swamping the stagnant crevices, dragging at the remains, urging them deeper into the rock-like substance; I felt the inhalation of the winds eddying through the rock, bearing the stench of corroding human forms deeper inward.
Revulsion sprang upon me, ushering a fresh, vivid sight that exploded around me. The titanic figure had gone and I was in the immediate presence of a squatting female. Although it was barely a few seconds that she was before me, her spidery limbs, hunched around her torso and her sagging, blue-veined skin intensified the horror which I was occasionally prone to, despite my enlightenment. I apprehended the blood which dribbled from a human skull onto her chest and the hooked, pitted tusks piercing her lips, forcing the scabbed flesh aside which scraped together, setting more blood welling and bubbling and spooling onto her chest; her eyes swelled, popping, fixed murderously upon me and as she vanished from view, I recognised her as an aspect of Kali, of the Shakti, of the Great Goddess who must devour before she can renew and I offered my self willingly unto her...
I was rewarded for the dawn of understanding with a beatific vision, this time arising from a solar orb. With the demonic form vanished, I was sat again in the house and in the air of the stairwell, I beheld a long-haired youth, smiling understandingly from a sun-like disc, his features richly burnished with hue of an ocean sunset. His hair was stirred as if with a soft breeze and the gentle light and the air of peace exuded by the male awoke memories of a close friend from my younger days. I took this vision as a positive sign at that moment and along with that of the Moon Goddess ,it would sustain me well through the horrors soon to be unleashed within that house.
Once I had the found the names and the key dates of the last Reverend’s children– the pillared archway of anyone’s temporal existence – I was determined to make contact with their spirits should they reside within the place.
Back at the house I sat in séance again, the effect of which was to reignite the knocking noises. They erupted downstairs and then climbed towards us, thumping through the floor boards toward the bedroom I had taken as my own. Closer they came and I mapped their approach. Past the clock, past the picture of North Wales, up to the threshold of my door. The sounds paused and I sensed a presence hovered there before the noises retreated again. Of the young men, it was Nozz who reacted first.
‘I saw it,’ he cried from the landing, ‘I saw it at that door.’
After much excited shouting and what not, Nozz described a ‘thin, jerky thing, it moved or scuttled, crab-like and then it just vanished.’
Attempts to recreate the experience failed and as we were all in thrall to the cameras, it was collectively decreed that we should return to the public house, leaving the equipment running. Our trek downhill was fuelled by an argument between Nozz and Crass. The latter claimed he was seeking clarification of any factors which might rationalise the other’s sighting. Nozz responded with some vigour, as if he were being accused of hysteria and we attracted some looks as we re-entered the establishment. Indeed, Aquinas was even required to create a fiction to account for the argument – our ruse, to fool the staff and regulars at the pub was that I had recently purchased property in the area and that they were a work gang who were renovating it. I’m not sure how convincing this was, yes, they all wore boiler suits but there was no evidence of labour staining them. Anyhow, the mood of the young men had deteriorated further. They drank quickly and drunkenness was afflicting them. Even myself, with my detachment from my cravings, failed to keep up. I sought to teach them the futility of submitting to such cravings but I may have been lecturing animals. I shall assert again, my mind and spirit are free from any craving save for that of the liberation of all, my body balances my outpourings of wisdom with a penchant for alcohol (as I am attuned to the Soul Supreme, my body can occasionally indulge it’s residual attachments whilst my mind remains ensconced within the cerulean Heaven of perpetual contemplation of the Absolute) and also occasionally, products that emit smoke – as my words wing upwards to the delight of the gods, so may palls of smoke guide them on their way.
Each time we resolved to leave the pub, another round would appear from one of our number, chaining us to the place yet longer. It was past eight o’clock before we were invited to leave. The argument over what should constitute ‘tea’ was deemed threatening and liable to spill into violence by the landlord. It appeared that Moffy had acquired only breakfast things and alcohol on his morning expedition and now there was debate over whether we should cook for ourselves, buy a takeaway or visit a local restaurant. I had nothing to say on such matters. As an enlightened man I am happy to accept the offerings of devotees. As it happened, on this night I was happy to accept the offerings of drunken young men.
Although the day had been bright and the sun still hung over the Irish sea, casting a blinding, molten sheen over the Dee estuary, it was a relief to return to the gloomy interior of the house. It seemed at that moment the day’s light had been too bright, bleaching the land and all of us drank deeply of water once we returned. I feared dehydration may have set into our corporeal frames and I was not the only one who stripped to the waist in a bid to relieve the ache that throbbed within me. I might have swallowed sea water and been left to shrivel in the sun, such was the pain.
Of course, the ill temper, the drinking, the repulsion from sunlight are all manifestations of spirit activity. That is what I expect you, as a potential student, to have realised. Whilst it is fully appropriate to rush to a materialistic explanation for aches and pains, sniffles and pangs when one is bogged down with day to day life, when one is investigating the paranormal, one should interpret any such symptoms in a metaphysical framework first.
Again, I sought refuge in meditation, occupying the hollow space at the top of the stairs. Although I was rehydrated, the ache persisted within me and I envisioned the full moon that would have been visible ascending the sky over the Mersey. Visualising the moon is a highly effective meditation. Any who has travelled on foot at night, or by any other open air means - boat, camel, elephant for example - will understand what I mean when I say that the moon and the starry night can become companions to such a wayfarer. For time out of mind the moon has been referred to as ‘Traveller’s Joy’, a term which has esoteric as well as exoteric meanings. If you ever spend time under the moon, its radiance draws the gaze and awakens a sense of wonder, it impresses itself upon you, it has a presence. In future days and nights, it is easier to invoke the sight and the radiance in the mind’s eye and frequently, a vision will arise in response to such an invocation. At that moment, in-between the silent clock and the landing step, I accepted the light, allowing it to filter into every cell where it waxed into an expansive, radiant flowering that admitted itself throughout my corporeal frame and beyond, filling the entire stairwell. In such states, visions arise and if one allows oneself to accept this visitation from beyond, rather than seeking to shape or rationalise it, then one can be ushered into profound states of awareness. As I sat in the lotus position, pearly light erupting from my being, I beheld a young lady, robed in the billowing night sky and crowned with a circlet of roses, scattering rose petals toward me. Later I would recall the initial vision of the young girl framed in a jewel of light, if it were she again, she was the Tara – Lady Wisdom who bears all to the isles of blessed non-attachment. As the soft, velvety petals fluttered against me, I felt myself arise in a fresh, less tangible body, dawning from the corporeal. I found myself stood within light and all was strangely silent. The lady had passed from view however the petals descended, acquiring a darker, earthier hue as they expanded into fissured, cratered plates beneath me.
At that moment I heard a female voice whisper, ‘roots!’
It was a distinct and vicious utterance, again at my actual ear. Later, I have wondered if it was ‘rooks’ as in the Crow or even ‘rocks’, although I am certain it was ‘roots’ with its multitude of attendant meanings.
For a moment, a peripheral awareness surfaced. The sounds of the young men’s investigation persisted at some distance still, none were close by attempting to record my experiences. There was no trace of any spectres and I swiftly returned into the state of inner absorbtion.
I found that the dark, cratered matter now loomed around me. I could feel it beneath where I sat, cross-legged, upon its cold, leaden surface as minute shivers ground away within it. Around me, eight, smoothed boulders lay and I perceived that they were human skulls positioned in a circle. The light within me, expanded yet further, shooting into the sky where a bulbous chunk of matter descended, as if a rocky, misshapen headed regard me. I felt I was in the company of some titanic presence that lay behind the land, behind the sandstone bluff, the salt-rich winds, the low-lying and sea-choked marsh and which has already leaked into the house.
Traversing the radiance emanating from within, I felt an affinity with the monstrous presence that held me upon itself; I also perceived that within the fissures pitting the substance, there were trails left by the trickle of waters as they probed downward, seeking the mysterious centre. My astral body may have slipped down there certainly, I felt droplets, easing down the stone, until they squeezed between the rock and cold flesh and I understood that stuffed deep into the crevices were human bodies. I felt torrential rains guttering around the flesh and bones, swamping the stagnant crevices, dragging at the remains, urging them deeper into the rock-like substance; I felt the inhalation of the winds eddying through the rock, bearing the stench of corroding human forms deeper inward.
Revulsion sprang upon me, ushering a fresh, vivid sight that exploded around me. The titanic figure had gone and I was in the immediate presence of a squatting female. Although it was barely a few seconds that she was before me, her spidery limbs, hunched around her torso and her sagging, blue-veined skin intensified the horror which I was occasionally prone to, despite my enlightenment. I apprehended the blood which dribbled from a human skull onto her chest and the hooked, pitted tusks piercing her lips, forcing the scabbed flesh aside which scraped together, setting more blood welling and bubbling and spooling onto her chest; her eyes swelled, popping, fixed murderously upon me and as she vanished from view, I recognised her as an aspect of Kali, of the Shakti, of the Great Goddess who must devour before she can renew and I offered my self willingly unto her...
I was rewarded for the dawn of understanding with a beatific vision, this time arising from a solar orb. With the demonic form vanished, I was sat again in the house and in the air of the stairwell, I beheld a long-haired youth, smiling understandingly from a sun-like disc, his features richly burnished with hue of an ocean sunset. His hair was stirred as if with a soft breeze and the gentle light and the air of peace exuded by the male awoke memories of a close friend from my younger days. I took this vision as a positive sign at that moment and along with that of the Moon Goddess ,it would sustain me well through the horrors soon to be unleashed within that house.
Sunday, 21 November 2010
Relaible Communion with the Dead
Since the misunderstandings which were inflicted upon me last week and the generous accommodation provided by the enforcers of the law, I have purchased some nights indoors at a local hostel. The cold is visited upon us and I have yet to choose the moment of my own passing; as a de facto Maharaj I owe it to the entirety of creation to resist the weather’s attempts to force me into Samadhi perpetual.
Enough of my trivial day-to-day arrangements, I shall continue with my teachings. The events of the summer of 2010 have been so momentous that I am bound to narrate them so that the unenlightened may be initiated into mysteries bound in the land of the British Isles. The events were themselves built upon my investigation of a haunted house in the seaside town of Wallasey. The house in question was truly well-appointed. Not only did it sit atop a hill and receive sun for much of the day, but it was also nestled alongside a historic church and boneyard whilst below, a wonderful public house and that other bastion of public life, a library were located.
After discovering the grave of the last Reverend’s children in adjoining graveyard, I returned to the house. Aquinas – Phil – was happy with my discovery and prepared to go and film the monument. Nothing possessed any manner of being, it would seem, unless it were committed to film. Before he did so, he mused on what may have brought the Reverend’s children back to the Wirral. As a man who has returned, my own experience may be of relevance. People return to die in their birthplace for two reasons, they never truly left or because their absence has transformed them and they wish to return cleansed and free themselves of some past upset. Before rushing off to talk into his camera, Aquinas – I cannot bring myself to call him Phil – mentioned something again of the Reverend’s descent into madness. According to a local historian, the vicar had abandoned a vague, Christianised Neo-Platonism for a version of the Arian heresy. Always a mistake if you should ask me!
Once host and ‘facilitator’ had absented himself, I made for the library to refresh my memory on the afore-mentioned heresy. Doubtless the young men’s devices could have located the information in minutes but they were too busy analysing footage from the previous night and besides, sitting with a book gives one time to think; an activity that the internet does not always encourage. I should point out that one of the gentlemen, Nozzer or something, found on ‘The Wallasey eNews Archive’ references to apparent grave robbings in the cemetery – when graves opened for maintenance reasons were found empty. Subsidence was posited as the reason, the remains having slipped into the hillside. Again, my insight appeared to be corroborated.
I found in the pleasant, single-storey, art deco library, a reference book which reminded me that Arianism was the idea that the Christian God was the only divinity, thus reducing the status of the son – and all other gods! – to that of a mortal man; mere flesh encasing spirit. I had neither the time nor the resources to study the matter in detail, I was due in the Cheese at one and I determined to ascertain why the children returned and the reasons behind their father’s madness through the most reliable means possible – deep meditation and communion with the dead!
Several hours of refreshment passed. I drank to segue into the general group dynamic and to pay homage to both the fruits of mother Earth and the skill of the folk who craft her wares into ale. I noticed a certain ill temper had descended on the group, despite the success of our investigation thus far. Indeed, their respect for myself had even slipped. As I may have already stated, I am entitled to call myself Swami, I was routinely addressed as Ji-Swift in Mother India. I do not insist on such terms of respect from my English brethren, I have no need of such egotistical props and I am happy to bear the title my maternal Uncle earned for his services to spiritualism (that is the Sir – for the benefit of my acolyte and any other s he may not be ‘on it’).
I took charge of matters at that moment – never a good idea for an enlightened man to assert, we lead by drawing the unenlightened to us through our devotions and general aura of holiness – and standing, uttered the following:
We are charged to serve the powers from whom all spirits arise and to which they return – (I ignored Aquinas’ gestures to fall silent at this point) if our job is to liberate them from their residing attachments then we must cast aside our own cravings to achieve that aim.
These words ushered the spirit of Conchord over us and another round of drinks was purchased – not in defiance against my teachings but rather as a misguided attempt to pay homage to the decades of wisdom which inhabit my corporeal frame. I drank too, to show a forgiveness of their petulance and to demonstrate that alcohol is an attachment one can overcome until it loses all pleasure and effect.
It would appear that I must fall silent for another week but I should state now, the phenomena which had been experienced thus far was nothing compared to what should follow that evening!
Enough of my trivial day-to-day arrangements, I shall continue with my teachings. The events of the summer of 2010 have been so momentous that I am bound to narrate them so that the unenlightened may be initiated into mysteries bound in the land of the British Isles. The events were themselves built upon my investigation of a haunted house in the seaside town of Wallasey. The house in question was truly well-appointed. Not only did it sit atop a hill and receive sun for much of the day, but it was also nestled alongside a historic church and boneyard whilst below, a wonderful public house and that other bastion of public life, a library were located.
After discovering the grave of the last Reverend’s children in adjoining graveyard, I returned to the house. Aquinas – Phil – was happy with my discovery and prepared to go and film the monument. Nothing possessed any manner of being, it would seem, unless it were committed to film. Before he did so, he mused on what may have brought the Reverend’s children back to the Wirral. As a man who has returned, my own experience may be of relevance. People return to die in their birthplace for two reasons, they never truly left or because their absence has transformed them and they wish to return cleansed and free themselves of some past upset. Before rushing off to talk into his camera, Aquinas – I cannot bring myself to call him Phil – mentioned something again of the Reverend’s descent into madness. According to a local historian, the vicar had abandoned a vague, Christianised Neo-Platonism for a version of the Arian heresy. Always a mistake if you should ask me!
Once host and ‘facilitator’ had absented himself, I made for the library to refresh my memory on the afore-mentioned heresy. Doubtless the young men’s devices could have located the information in minutes but they were too busy analysing footage from the previous night and besides, sitting with a book gives one time to think; an activity that the internet does not always encourage. I should point out that one of the gentlemen, Nozzer or something, found on ‘The Wallasey eNews Archive’ references to apparent grave robbings in the cemetery – when graves opened for maintenance reasons were found empty. Subsidence was posited as the reason, the remains having slipped into the hillside. Again, my insight appeared to be corroborated.
I found in the pleasant, single-storey, art deco library, a reference book which reminded me that Arianism was the idea that the Christian God was the only divinity, thus reducing the status of the son – and all other gods! – to that of a mortal man; mere flesh encasing spirit. I had neither the time nor the resources to study the matter in detail, I was due in the Cheese at one and I determined to ascertain why the children returned and the reasons behind their father’s madness through the most reliable means possible – deep meditation and communion with the dead!
Several hours of refreshment passed. I drank to segue into the general group dynamic and to pay homage to both the fruits of mother Earth and the skill of the folk who craft her wares into ale. I noticed a certain ill temper had descended on the group, despite the success of our investigation thus far. Indeed, their respect for myself had even slipped. As I may have already stated, I am entitled to call myself Swami, I was routinely addressed as Ji-Swift in Mother India. I do not insist on such terms of respect from my English brethren, I have no need of such egotistical props and I am happy to bear the title my maternal Uncle earned for his services to spiritualism (that is the Sir – for the benefit of my acolyte and any other s he may not be ‘on it’).
I took charge of matters at that moment – never a good idea for an enlightened man to assert, we lead by drawing the unenlightened to us through our devotions and general aura of holiness – and standing, uttered the following:
We are charged to serve the powers from whom all spirits arise and to which they return – (I ignored Aquinas’ gestures to fall silent at this point) if our job is to liberate them from their residing attachments then we must cast aside our own cravings to achieve that aim.
These words ushered the spirit of Conchord over us and another round of drinks was purchased – not in defiance against my teachings but rather as a misguided attempt to pay homage to the decades of wisdom which inhabit my corporeal frame. I drank too, to show a forgiveness of their petulance and to demonstrate that alcohol is an attachment one can overcome until it loses all pleasure and effect.
It would appear that I must fall silent for another week but I should state now, the phenomena which had been experienced thus far was nothing compared to what should follow that evening!
Reliable Communion with the Dead
Since the misunderstandings which were inflicted upon me last week and the generous accommodation provided by the enforcers of the law, I have purchased some nights indoors at a local hostel. The cold is visited upon us and I have yet to choose the moment of my own passing; as a de facto Maharaj I owe it to the entirety of creation to resist the weather’s attempts to force me into Samadhi perpetual.
Enough of my trivial day-to-day arrangements, I shall continue with my teachings. The events of the summer of 2010 have been so momentous that I am bound to narrate them so that the unenlightened may be initiated into mysteries bound in the land of the British Isles. The events were themselves built upon my investigation of a haunted house in the seaside town of Wallasey. The house in question was truly well-appointed. Not only did it sit atop a hill and receive sun for much of the day, but it was also nestled alongside a historic church and boneyard whilst below, a wonderful public house and that other bastion of public life, a library were located.
After discovering the grave of the last Reverend’s children in adjoining graveyard, I returned to the house. Aquinas – Phil – was happy with my discovery and prepared to go and film the monument. Nothing possessed any manner of being, it would seem, unless it were committed to film. Before he did so, he mused on what may have brought the Reverend’s children back to the Wirral. As a man who has returned, my own experience may be of relevance. People return to die in their birthplace for two reasons, they never truly left or because their absence has transformed them and they wish to return cleansed and free themselves of some past upset. Before rushing off to talk into his camera, Aquinas – I cannot bring myself to call him Phil – mentioned something again of the Reverend’s descent into madness. According to a local historian, the vicar had abandoned a vague, Christianised Neo-Platonism for a version of the Arian heresy. Always a mistake if you should ask me!
Once host and ‘facilitator’ had absented himself, I made for the library to refresh my memory on the afore-mentioned heresy. Doubtless the young men’s devices could have located the information in minutes but they were too busy analysing footage from the previous night and besides, sitting with a book gives one time to think; an activity that the internet does not always encourage. I should point out that one of the gentlemen, Nozzer or something, found on ‘The Wallasey eNews Archive’ references to apparent grave robbings in the cemetery – when graves opened for maintenance reasons were found empty. Subsidence was posited as the reason, the remains having slipped into the hillside. Again, my insight appeared to be corroborated.
I found in the pleasant, single-storey, art deco library, a reference book which reminded me that Arianism was the idea that the Christian God was the only divinity, thus reducing the status of the son – and all other gods! – to that of a mortal man; mere flesh encasing spirit. I had neither the time nor the resources to study the matter in detail, I was due in the Cheese at one and I determined to ascertain why the children returned and the reasons behind their father’s madness through the most reliable means possible – deep meditation and communion with the dead!
Several hours of refreshment passed. I drank to segue into the general group dynamic and to pay homage to both the fruits of mother Earth and the skill of the folk who craft her wares into ale. I noticed a certain ill temper had descended on the group, despite the success of our investigation thus far. Indeed, their respect for myself had even slipped. As I may have already stated, I am entitled to call myself Swami, I was routinely addressed as Ji-Swift in Mother India. I do not insist on such terms of respect from my English brethren, I have no need of such egotistical props and I am happy to bear the title my maternal Uncle earned for his services to spiritualism (that is the Sir – for the benefit of my acolyte and any other s he may not be ‘on it’).
I took charge of matters at that moment – never a good idea for an enlightened man to assert, we lead by drawing the unenlightened to us through our devotions and general aura of holiness – and standing, uttered the following:
We are charged to serve the powers from whom all spirits arise and to which they return – (I ignored Aquinas’ gestures to fall silent at this point) if our job is to liberate them from their residing attachments then we must cast aside our own cravings to achieve that aim.
These words ushered the spirit of Conchord over us and another round of drinks was purchased – not in defiance against my teachings but rather as a misguided attempt to pay homage to the decades of wisdom which inhabit my corporeal frame. I drank too, to show a forgiveness of their petulance and to demonstrate that alcohol is an attachment one can overcome until it loses all pleasure and effect.
It would appear that I must fall silent for another week but I should state now, the phenomena which had been experienced thus far was nothing compared to what should follow that evening!
Enough of my trivial day-to-day arrangements, I shall continue with my teachings. The events of the summer of 2010 have been so momentous that I am bound to narrate them so that the unenlightened may be initiated into mysteries bound in the land of the British Isles. The events were themselves built upon my investigation of a haunted house in the seaside town of Wallasey. The house in question was truly well-appointed. Not only did it sit atop a hill and receive sun for much of the day, but it was also nestled alongside a historic church and boneyard whilst below, a wonderful public house and that other bastion of public life, a library were located.
After discovering the grave of the last Reverend’s children in adjoining graveyard, I returned to the house. Aquinas – Phil – was happy with my discovery and prepared to go and film the monument. Nothing possessed any manner of being, it would seem, unless it were committed to film. Before he did so, he mused on what may have brought the Reverend’s children back to the Wirral. As a man who has returned, my own experience may be of relevance. People return to die in their birthplace for two reasons, they never truly left or because their absence has transformed them and they wish to return cleansed and free themselves of some past upset. Before rushing off to talk into his camera, Aquinas – I cannot bring myself to call him Phil – mentioned something again of the Reverend’s descent into madness. According to a local historian, the vicar had abandoned a vague, Christianised Neo-Platonism for a version of the Arian heresy. Always a mistake if you should ask me!
Once host and ‘facilitator’ had absented himself, I made for the library to refresh my memory on the afore-mentioned heresy. Doubtless the young men’s devices could have located the information in minutes but they were too busy analysing footage from the previous night and besides, sitting with a book gives one time to think; an activity that the internet does not always encourage. I should point out that one of the gentlemen, Nozzer or something, found on ‘The Wallasey eNews Archive’ references to apparent grave robbings in the cemetery – when graves opened for maintenance reasons were found empty. Subsidence was posited as the reason, the remains having slipped into the hillside. Again, my insight appeared to be corroborated.
I found in the pleasant, single-storey, art deco library, a reference book which reminded me that Arianism was the idea that the Christian God was the only divinity, thus reducing the status of the son – and all other gods! – to that of a mortal man; mere flesh encasing spirit. I had neither the time nor the resources to study the matter in detail, I was due in the Cheese at one and I determined to ascertain why the children returned and the reasons behind their father’s madness through the most reliable means possible – deep meditation and communion with the dead!
Several hours of refreshment passed. I drank to segue into the general group dynamic and to pay homage to both the fruits of mother Earth and the skill of the folk who craft her wares into ale. I noticed a certain ill temper had descended on the group, despite the success of our investigation thus far. Indeed, their respect for myself had even slipped. As I may have already stated, I am entitled to call myself Swami, I was routinely addressed as Ji-Swift in Mother India. I do not insist on such terms of respect from my English brethren, I have no need of such egotistical props and I am happy to bear the title my maternal Uncle earned for his services to spiritualism (that is the Sir – for the benefit of my acolyte and any other s he may not be ‘on it’).
I took charge of matters at that moment – never a good idea for an enlightened man to assert, we lead by drawing the unenlightened to us through our devotions and general aura of holiness – and standing, uttered the following:
We are charged to serve the powers from whom all spirits arise and to which they return – (I ignored Aquinas’ gestures to fall silent at this point) if our job is to liberate them from their residing attachments then we must cast aside our own cravings to achieve that aim.
These words ushered the spirit of Conchord over us and another round of drinks was purchased – not in defiance against my teachings but rather as a misguided attempt to pay homage to the decades of wisdom which inhabit my corporeal frame. I drank too, to show a forgiveness of their petulance and to demonstrate that alcohol is an attachment one can overcome until it loses all pleasure and effect.
It would appear that I must fall silent for another week but I should state now, the phenomena which had been experienced thus far was nothing compared to what should follow that evening!
Friday, 12 November 2010
Resonating with the transcendent outpourings of Brahma, suffused with the nurturing milk of the Goddess / An enlightened man never tries
I indicated in my last post that my body, whilst I was at the house at St Hilary’s, was clearly aching for a night indoors. The attentive student will recall that I was resident at the Magazine’s Hotel however I tended to indulge my patronage during the daylight hours, choosing instead to spend the evening in the nearby park in a state of Samadhi. My aging joints certainly craved the indulgence of a dry room, of soft furnishings and of curtains that deterred the unruly, summer sun. Fortunately I no longer obey my bodies’ superfluous demands and there is nothing I embrace more than a vigil under the stars or sitting in a strange property communing with the unquiet dead!
I should at this point recount a recent incident which those hostile to my message of universal love and liberation from the constraints of the ego, may seek to misrepresent. I was engaged in a séance at the Perch Rock Hotel in New Brighton. Once a week I have sat there, conveying the words of the dead to the customers of that establishment. As can be expected a fair number of detractors have attended, mocking and seeking to uncover some form of subterfuge. Despite numerous demonstrations of genuine contact from beyond (and I have no desire to enrich myself, gain fame or convince others of the veracity of the spirit world, although I have subsisted on some generous offerings from those who have welcomed contact with the departed) these detractors have sought to playfully undermine each session, chiefly through sarcastic comments and erratic examinations of my immediate surroundings.
On the occasion in question, I was channelling a spirit which propelled my leg forward toward the shin and I repeat, the shin, of the lady with whom I was sitting. The spasm was completely involuntary and of a manifestly non-sexual nature. The Kundalini was not in ascendant, I was not a scion of Shiva, or she Shakti, however the manifestation was observed, misconstrued and in mere moments and ugly scuffle erupted. I retreated into meditation, prepared as always for Samadhi beyond Sabikalpa (perpetual union with God, beyond a bodily trance), however the buffeting I received as a mob swayed to and fro around me, threw me from a state of deep communion with the Tara, the Mothering wisdom which transports the enlightened soul across life’s turbulent waves.
In a bid to calm the tension I sought to invoke the Goddess in her most maternal aspect. Before any derogatory comments make the headlines, I should state that I did not call anyone a ‘fucking cow’; I did not label any groups ‘fucking cattle’. I certainly did call for a diminishing of ignorance, for all to suckle upon the teat of wisdom – although perhaps not in those exact words – and for a deep bond to be made with the mother of all. As I voiced such prayers, I visualised the Goddess in the form of a cow – the embodiment of a nurturing universe and whose spiritual milk is a wise selflessness.
Alas, at times my zeal clouds my paltry social awareness and I was mistaken for a foul-mouthed ‘lampoonist’, it required the intervention of the licensee to calm the brawl with offers of free drink. I ejected myself willingly and offered thanks to Bacchus, whilst alone on the promenade and despite their aggression; I prayed that my antagonists who were celebrating some form of victory for rationalism with conspicuous over-consumption no doubt, that they may be charioted unto the stars by the leopards of that god of abandonment and joy.
My teachings concluded for the night, I desired some uninterrupted communion with the blissful absolute of self-abandonment and I found myself led to the breakwater, a pile of boulders on the shore. I climbed atop the rocks and found a niche, slightly withdrawn from the blustering wind. What buffets did assail me, I employed to detach me from my physical senses and soon I was adrift on the song of approaching winter.
The only ship or boat I am interested in is that vessel of maternal emptiness, alluded to earlier in the form of the Tara. Smothered in the comforts of self-denial, one is conveyed to a state of absolute alertness, accompanied often with a sense of bliss and above all and most profoundly, a state of stillness and peace.
I was not then ‘rescued by the life boat’; it was summoned by the police officer who had been alerted to my devotions on the rocks. My observations translated into a suicide attempt apparently. I should also say that I was not arrested I merely accepted the officer’s offer of a lift from the scene and a safe night inside the cells, which was considerate of them.
You will conclude, attentive reader, from this episode, that I am indefatigable in my wish to direct all whom I encounter toward the truth of man’s immortal essence, no matter how dangerous or inconvenient it may be towards my ephemeral body.
Even the most inattentive of students will understand that no such cynicism met my revelations at the house by St Hilary’s. The manifestations from the world unseen were treated with the dignity they fully deserved. However I was unable to see out that first night as fatigue forced me to retire.
I should state that I experienced vivid and rather disturbing dreams on that night in the house. I enjoyed the rest – the bed was comfortable and the house was warm and dry, so even one indifferent to the drag of ego and id could acknowledge the mortal frame’s comfort. I spent part of the night dreaming that I was in a coffin. This was not an unpleasant confinement. What disturbed me were the scratching and tapping noises on the exterior of my casket. Several times I awoke to find the sheets tightly bound around my sweating torso and I comforted myself that my final end would be through flame and wind and water. As the night progressed, my dreams took my from my coffin to another abyss, where I hung in moonlight, conscious of being regarded from some thing(s) that haunted the space below.
When I finally rose the following morning, I committed these dreams to my notebook and after observing my ablutions, I found the young men sat in the garden. I arrived as their heated disagreement over breakfast arrangements culminated in a decision that one should brave the interior of a local shop to purchase victuals. As one of their number (Moffy I believe) trooped off, I recounted my experiences to the remaining investigators. It was pleasant to sit, discoursing, in the sun. The earth was fresh after the rain, traces of mist still webbed the lower lands spreading across to the sacred sheen of the Dee, whilst the flowers were especially opulent, all edging into the greatest pool of light. A wall flower cloaking the graveside wall shivered delightfully at the faintest touch of wind.
Aquinas (whose name was actually Phil) was collating our experiences and suggesting tasks for the day. Quite sensibly, he requested that the rapping sounds try and be replicated. The words I heard he suggested could have emanated from the spirits of the last Reverend’s children who, interestingly, requested to be buried at St Hilary’s. A trudge around the graveyard awaited me as I stated I would seek the graves of the young.
An hour later, I tramped through the long grasses, skirting the ruined tower and descending the slope that fell toward the Cheese; the older graves were located in the eastern and southern part of the yard but I had yet to find the graves belonging to the troubled Reverend’s offspring. Not of course that I was checking the names on the graves, it was far quicker and more efficient to rely on intuition. Indeed I had been trying too hard – a mistake that an enlightened man cannot be accused of making too often – for it was as I slumped, wearied by my exertions that I found what I was looking for. I sat, facing the house and to my immediate left was a cracked, horizontal gravestone, adorned with a sandstone wreath whose bordering skulls bore minerals that winked in the sun. Checking and finding the appropriates names, I sat cross-legged on the monument and allowed my thoughts to drift away like the clouds; I released my awareness into the breeze ruffling the sycamores and the grass and I accepted the grasp of the sun, offering my residual attachments to the scorching interrogation of Heaven’s King. The distant traffic and the soaring lark receded and a pattern of syllables arose in my consciousness, resonating through me, scattering me into the blank grip of the earth. The world became that force and I was one with the blankness through which it moved and into which it descended. This state persisted until I became aware of a solid pressing against me. There was something reassuring by this sensation intruding into the blankness but when it suddenly fell away, fleetingly inducing a sickening horror that I would fall, it was replaced by the sense that something was dragging at me, pulling me down through cracked stone, packed earth, sifting sand and shattered wood. Thrown completely from the trance, my mind burned with the sudden understanding that many of the graves below my feet were empty and they had all been emptied from below!
I can continue no more this week. My acolyte’s son cannot sleep due to my resonating tones and I must now fall silent. (I do not bray or bellow, I resonate with the transcendent outpourings of Brahma) alas, I cannot show my acolyte my notes – he finds them impenetrable.
I should at this point recount a recent incident which those hostile to my message of universal love and liberation from the constraints of the ego, may seek to misrepresent. I was engaged in a séance at the Perch Rock Hotel in New Brighton. Once a week I have sat there, conveying the words of the dead to the customers of that establishment. As can be expected a fair number of detractors have attended, mocking and seeking to uncover some form of subterfuge. Despite numerous demonstrations of genuine contact from beyond (and I have no desire to enrich myself, gain fame or convince others of the veracity of the spirit world, although I have subsisted on some generous offerings from those who have welcomed contact with the departed) these detractors have sought to playfully undermine each session, chiefly through sarcastic comments and erratic examinations of my immediate surroundings.
On the occasion in question, I was channelling a spirit which propelled my leg forward toward the shin and I repeat, the shin, of the lady with whom I was sitting. The spasm was completely involuntary and of a manifestly non-sexual nature. The Kundalini was not in ascendant, I was not a scion of Shiva, or she Shakti, however the manifestation was observed, misconstrued and in mere moments and ugly scuffle erupted. I retreated into meditation, prepared as always for Samadhi beyond Sabikalpa (perpetual union with God, beyond a bodily trance), however the buffeting I received as a mob swayed to and fro around me, threw me from a state of deep communion with the Tara, the Mothering wisdom which transports the enlightened soul across life’s turbulent waves.
In a bid to calm the tension I sought to invoke the Goddess in her most maternal aspect. Before any derogatory comments make the headlines, I should state that I did not call anyone a ‘fucking cow’; I did not label any groups ‘fucking cattle’. I certainly did call for a diminishing of ignorance, for all to suckle upon the teat of wisdom – although perhaps not in those exact words – and for a deep bond to be made with the mother of all. As I voiced such prayers, I visualised the Goddess in the form of a cow – the embodiment of a nurturing universe and whose spiritual milk is a wise selflessness.
Alas, at times my zeal clouds my paltry social awareness and I was mistaken for a foul-mouthed ‘lampoonist’, it required the intervention of the licensee to calm the brawl with offers of free drink. I ejected myself willingly and offered thanks to Bacchus, whilst alone on the promenade and despite their aggression; I prayed that my antagonists who were celebrating some form of victory for rationalism with conspicuous over-consumption no doubt, that they may be charioted unto the stars by the leopards of that god of abandonment and joy.
My teachings concluded for the night, I desired some uninterrupted communion with the blissful absolute of self-abandonment and I found myself led to the breakwater, a pile of boulders on the shore. I climbed atop the rocks and found a niche, slightly withdrawn from the blustering wind. What buffets did assail me, I employed to detach me from my physical senses and soon I was adrift on the song of approaching winter.
The only ship or boat I am interested in is that vessel of maternal emptiness, alluded to earlier in the form of the Tara. Smothered in the comforts of self-denial, one is conveyed to a state of absolute alertness, accompanied often with a sense of bliss and above all and most profoundly, a state of stillness and peace.
I was not then ‘rescued by the life boat’; it was summoned by the police officer who had been alerted to my devotions on the rocks. My observations translated into a suicide attempt apparently. I should also say that I was not arrested I merely accepted the officer’s offer of a lift from the scene and a safe night inside the cells, which was considerate of them.
You will conclude, attentive reader, from this episode, that I am indefatigable in my wish to direct all whom I encounter toward the truth of man’s immortal essence, no matter how dangerous or inconvenient it may be towards my ephemeral body.
Even the most inattentive of students will understand that no such cynicism met my revelations at the house by St Hilary’s. The manifestations from the world unseen were treated with the dignity they fully deserved. However I was unable to see out that first night as fatigue forced me to retire.
I should state that I experienced vivid and rather disturbing dreams on that night in the house. I enjoyed the rest – the bed was comfortable and the house was warm and dry, so even one indifferent to the drag of ego and id could acknowledge the mortal frame’s comfort. I spent part of the night dreaming that I was in a coffin. This was not an unpleasant confinement. What disturbed me were the scratching and tapping noises on the exterior of my casket. Several times I awoke to find the sheets tightly bound around my sweating torso and I comforted myself that my final end would be through flame and wind and water. As the night progressed, my dreams took my from my coffin to another abyss, where I hung in moonlight, conscious of being regarded from some thing(s) that haunted the space below.
When I finally rose the following morning, I committed these dreams to my notebook and after observing my ablutions, I found the young men sat in the garden. I arrived as their heated disagreement over breakfast arrangements culminated in a decision that one should brave the interior of a local shop to purchase victuals. As one of their number (Moffy I believe) trooped off, I recounted my experiences to the remaining investigators. It was pleasant to sit, discoursing, in the sun. The earth was fresh after the rain, traces of mist still webbed the lower lands spreading across to the sacred sheen of the Dee, whilst the flowers were especially opulent, all edging into the greatest pool of light. A wall flower cloaking the graveside wall shivered delightfully at the faintest touch of wind.
Aquinas (whose name was actually Phil) was collating our experiences and suggesting tasks for the day. Quite sensibly, he requested that the rapping sounds try and be replicated. The words I heard he suggested could have emanated from the spirits of the last Reverend’s children who, interestingly, requested to be buried at St Hilary’s. A trudge around the graveyard awaited me as I stated I would seek the graves of the young.
An hour later, I tramped through the long grasses, skirting the ruined tower and descending the slope that fell toward the Cheese; the older graves were located in the eastern and southern part of the yard but I had yet to find the graves belonging to the troubled Reverend’s offspring. Not of course that I was checking the names on the graves, it was far quicker and more efficient to rely on intuition. Indeed I had been trying too hard – a mistake that an enlightened man cannot be accused of making too often – for it was as I slumped, wearied by my exertions that I found what I was looking for. I sat, facing the house and to my immediate left was a cracked, horizontal gravestone, adorned with a sandstone wreath whose bordering skulls bore minerals that winked in the sun. Checking and finding the appropriates names, I sat cross-legged on the monument and allowed my thoughts to drift away like the clouds; I released my awareness into the breeze ruffling the sycamores and the grass and I accepted the grasp of the sun, offering my residual attachments to the scorching interrogation of Heaven’s King. The distant traffic and the soaring lark receded and a pattern of syllables arose in my consciousness, resonating through me, scattering me into the blank grip of the earth. The world became that force and I was one with the blankness through which it moved and into which it descended. This state persisted until I became aware of a solid pressing against me. There was something reassuring by this sensation intruding into the blankness but when it suddenly fell away, fleetingly inducing a sickening horror that I would fall, it was replaced by the sense that something was dragging at me, pulling me down through cracked stone, packed earth, sifting sand and shattered wood. Thrown completely from the trance, my mind burned with the sudden understanding that many of the graves below my feet were empty and they had all been emptied from below!
I can continue no more this week. My acolyte’s son cannot sleep due to my resonating tones and I must now fall silent. (I do not bray or bellow, I resonate with the transcendent outpourings of Brahma) alas, I cannot show my acolyte my notes – he finds them impenetrable.
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