Edge of an Abyss

As I inched myself away from the window and towards the door I was relieved to find the force abating, to the extent that by the time I’d moved a few metres I was able to stand just outside the doorway quite comfortably, without feeling even a breeze.

It was a studio flat and I was now a step away from the front door, which the moment I looked at it ‘blew open’ outwards into an optical illusion that was impenetrable darkness, the edge of an abyss. It had to be an optical illusion, because despite the extremely unusual circumstances, I was fully conscious, and knew full-well that there was a street light right outside the front door and enough ambient light from the city to ensure it was never completely dark, not even in the depths of night.
With the wind raging behind me but all apparently calm in front, the idea of walking out and away was more than appealing. I was just about to do just that when the pitch of the darkness suddenly struck me and I sensed the collusion of this darkness with the evil wind.

I realised in that instant that I was being lured away from my body and knew that I had to go back. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I had gone outside instead.

The Wind

The walls began to visually pour with black blood in good old horror-movie fashion. Clearly this was done to intensify my fear and at the time the effect was horrific, although I didn’t have a moment in which to panic. With what little self control I had left I managed to get back into my body a couple more times, whereupon I made desperate but vain attempts to awaken the witch man beside me.

When I managed to speak – this took a monumental effort – my voice sounded strangulated and barely audible, shocking to hear. When I next got ripped out I was more horrified than ever to find that I’d brought the sleeping self of the witch with me.

I dropped him immediately and I confess that I blamed him at that moment for what was happening, considering that he had encouraged the force to come after me and had failed utterly in his promise to protect me.

Alone in the corner of the ceiling, mortally afraid and pinned into place by the wind, I gathered my thoughts enough to move along the wall, away from the large (closed) double windows where the wind seemed to be coming from.

The Witch

This happened more than 14 years ago.

One night without warning, between 1.00 and 2.00 am, the source of my darkest fears – the demon itself which had haunted and pursued me throughout my entire childhood and adolescence – returned with a vengeance and ripped me out of my body within seconds of me lying down in bed.

I was completely sober and fully conscious. The only way it can be described at this point is as a hurricane-like silent wind that was at one with the darkness.

I was aware of the time because the bed had no headboard and during the struggle I was able to force my head back over the edge, putting my upside-down vision into line with the clock on the video recorder.

Every time I managed to fight my way back into my body (an enormous struggle of to-ing and fro-ing which lasted about 15 or 20 minutes) I would check on the time in a desperate attempt to keep a grip on the waking world; on ‘reality’.

At a certain point the force proved too strong and I found myself blown against a corner of the ceiling, looking down at my own body and that of my (then) boyfriend. The ‘witch’.

Papus: Magic is the science of Love

Magic is crowned, since her task is the sublimation of Nature, as indicated by the shield or coat-of-arms with the eagle in flight, that the Empress holds instead of the book of the High Priestess.

Josephin Peladan defined magic as “the art of the sublimation of man”, no other formula is superior to his. This is exactly the emblem – or aim – of magic, if one understands by “sublimation of man” that of human nature. Peladan had a very profound understanding of the emblem of magic: the shield with the eagle in flight. All his works bear witness to this. Together they represent a magnificent flight; they aim, as a whole and each taken individually, at the ideal of the sublimation of human nature.

It is because Peladan bore the emblem of magic: the flying eagle, that this is so.

Isn’t it to have the emblem of magic before one’s eyes that one is invited “to throw the eagles of one’s desires to the wind”, because happiness “raised to the level of an ideal, freed from the negative aspects of oneself and of things….is the sole triumph of this world?” It is the same emblem – the shield with the eagle – that Papus had in mind, in actual fact, when he defined magic as:

The application of the strengthened human will to accelerate the evolution of the living forces of nature.

He preceded this definition with another:

Magic is the science of love.

For it is precisely “the accelerated evolution of the living forces of Nature” that the eagle of the shield of the Empress represents; “the science of LOVE” is the sceptre of the Empress, which represents the means by which the aim of magic is attained.

Unknown author, Meditations on the Tarot, Letter III, The Empress

Reason leaves with the Fairy Guide

continued from The Fairy Guide…..

“We may go for a little while, but do not stray”

The whisper was like a fire in the night seen only by myself and I snapped out of the reverie I had fallen into. It seemed that consciousness had not gone the same way as my reason and I was glad, then, for the voice of this unseen third behind me.

I had remembered him (or her, it was not clear) at the onset of the journey, for he had surely made himself known in my heart. Was he, perhaps, a more faithful friend then reason, or at least a more reliable one? I recognized the wisdom of the alternative to us all going along together and, as I did, the fairy looked with deeper interest at the longing brown-haired girl, and then back at me. “Perhaps we two should go on ahead and you may follow later, if you wish?”

Although I could easily have gone along with them, this last was revealing itself as the best option. As anything is possible within reason I judged that it would probably be best to let her take the lead on this occasion, especially as she had clearly found something for which she had been looking. The fairy would soon lose interest in me if I remained passive and, with consciousness intact, I would not be likely to slip up as long as I remained vigilant.

The fairy smiled at me with those glittering eyes again and I felt a strange sensation. Inexplicably, I wanted to kiss her, and I leant towards her almost despite myself. I was so close that a silken strand of long hair, lifted by the wind, coiled around my neck and touched my bare back and I spoke quickly to cover my confusion.

“Thank you for taking care of my friend, I hope to join you both very shortly, I’m sure I will find my way to the Potter’s hearth, I’m sure it will be easy to find. Maybe I could ask someone for directions..”

The fairy was spontaneously helpful for no apparent reason. “Have no fear”, she said, “his house is well hidden, but you shall find the way without having to look. Follow your instincts, but remember to turn right; the way back here is not East of Eden.”

I was very glad of this kindness she had shown me in exchange for the companionship of my enchanted reason, which parted from my self with what I knew would soon become wanton abandon. I wondered if her preference for the elemental being was a form of betrayal or liberation.

Om Mani Padme Hum

Over to the left in the same home county, the sun touched its golden brow to the High Street’s Eastern end, flooding the entire length with a pearlescent mirage of soft light.

It cast a shimmering spear through a particularly well-positioned bedroom window, instantly awakening the Master, who climbed from the narrow single bed, lit a stick of rose-infused incense, struck a set of copper wind chimes and then padded off to the bathroom chanting a dawn mantra.

Om Mani Padme Hum