Chapter
4
The
sage
I enrol on a
course with the melancholy magician on
the Chaldean art of raising spirits. In a corner of my bedroom at my
parent’s home
where I used to live, I construct a
magical temple, with full circle for the summoning of angels and
demons.
I could evoke into the triangle, but
that would not be enough. I need to invoke
to the point of becoming properly possessed.
I perform
conjurations. I discover how to make
entrance into the world of spirit. The theory I am learning is not
altogether
orthodox, if we may speak of orthodoxy in this field. This is a very
direct
method of magical communication, and dangerous like hang gliding.
Mental
discipline is in no way called for, all the protection comes from words
and symbols,
whether written or spoken.
My first
efforts resulted in the horribly infantile. The
conjurations worked, but for a while the only beings I
came across were nasty little devils. They
all arrived in pairs. It was like playing with toys. I had regressed to
early
childhood. The first two were acutely embarrassing little imps who
seemed to be
made of plasticine and who gave out their names as Wee-wee and
Plop-plop. They brought
a feeling of acute shame, like that of a child who has messed himself
in public.
In all my years of occult research I had never heard mention of such
lowly and
despicable beings.
The magician
was quite calm when I told him of my
experiences. Nothing ever surprised him. Worried by personal problems
of his
own he clearly had a perfect understanding of spiritual cartography.
With all
that wisdom why couldn’t he sort himself out? I take it he was born
miserable.
I know I would never get like that. Just the star under which I was
born, I
suppose. I put that to him. He told me I should now be able to
understand what
he had been going through.
He was
constantly haunted by a pair of female devils
that he had conjured up several years ago, succubi, who had given him
for a
while a considerable measure of enjoyment. As well as sensual pleasure
they
promised him wealth beyond his wildest imaginings. Now they yelled at
him day
and night, with vile accusations and unreasonable demands. Something
somewhere had
gone wrong, and he lost the control he ought to have been able to
retain. The
slip, he said, was the merest folly on his part, and he had no
apprehension
that I would repeat it. In the elementary state of my attainments I
would not
even be exposed to such risks as yet. He advised me just to follow my
fancies
as they arose in my mind.
“Once I was
so proud and strong, the most accomplished
adept in the satrapy, rich in slaves whom I would whip mercilessly for
the
slightest disobedience. You can have no understanding of the true joy
of
slavery, the happiness it could bring to the owner. And we in those
days didn’t
fully appreciate what we had, we never foresaw a time when it would
disappear
altogether from the earth. Now I am a poor creature, harassed day and
night. Once
these emancipated devils were my pets, and they could be very
affectionate. Sometimes
they still are, but now they constantly strive to subject me to their
wills. My
life has become an endurance test.”
He then
quoted me some verses from a long miserable
poem by a poet he used to know.
'Slave agree with me!' "Yes, my lord, Yes!'
‘I
will love a woman’
‘So
love my lord, so love
The
man who loves a woman forgets want and
misery’
‘No
slave I will not love a woman’
‘Love
not, my lord, love not,
Woman
is snare, a trap, a pitfall.
Woman
is a sharpened iron sword
Which
will cut a young man’s neck’
Not really
the wisdom I was seeking, that. So much for
the happiness of slavery, I thought. I would follow my own course. I
must say
all this struck me as rather pathetic. There must be a way of whipping
spirits,
surely. I suspected he had just grown old and impotent.
Ascending
through the astral planes I meet all the
demons of my own imagination. These were not normal objects, not the objective thing, but the emotions
they may or may not inspire. I am possessed by these in turn. I will
not name
them all. Most were trivial, and/or tedious. Others were very nasty
indeed.
They continued to arrive in pairs.
One of the
worst was Nanquil also known acronymically
as Dothod, demon of the horror of death. He really put the wind up me. All very well to be brave about death but no
use at all when confronting this one. Accompanying him was Defoq, the demon of disgust for queers, very horrible
and bigoted.
After a month
or so, with the manifestation of the
mischievous little fairies, Clitoris and Toothache,
at last I felt myself gaining a sense of control. I
am on a quest for an alternative wisdom
and an alternative paradise. For the
moment I am possessed with this political concern, this need for
reform. I am concerned
to combat enemies of enlightenment. I need to overcome all this
darkness, this new exaltation of
everything I hoped had
been defeated. But there are diversions. One day I chance to summon up
two northern
girls, circa 1960, who are going abroad for the first time. They go to
The
magician, preoccupied with his own sexual neurosis, suggests I take a
holiday
and follow them. So I travel in time to meet the girls. They tell me I
have it
wrong, that they enjoy the attention, that the Italian men like women, which is not what they find of the English.
They
are northern girls, and seem pretty available.
I
don’t want to be an Italian. I’d much rather be an Englishman
disguising
himself as an Italian. So I go among the crowd and enjoy myself
touching and pinching
the culi of the signorinas. I have discovered one form of paradise. I
feel I am
a barbarian in an advanced civilisation. As when among Germans I do not
really
want to be German, though I very much enjoy their customs, like their
mixed
saunas.
With
the wisdom I have gained I move back a few years, just a few to where I
was
before I moved forward. I have acquired many new powers. I now feel
competent to
raise the dead. I ask my Persian to assist in summoning the sprit of
the pundit,
a sage who had such a strong presence in my early life. This was a man who personally spoke to me at age
14, he comes intensely
alive in his writings. We are going to resurrect him.
We
enter the aristocratic house where his ancestors lived for centuries. I
am intimidated
by the portraits of snooty women from centuries back, grand ladies who
make me
feel plebeian. Their faces express disdain and vivacity.
The
Persian accompanies me to verify my procedures. I perform an act of
necromancy.
I go to the old chapel in the grounds and stand for half an hour before
his
tomb repeating the barbarous words of invocation. A swarm of black
ravens
passes before my eyes. The sage, the enlightener, the pundit, appears
before
me, not ancient as I remember him from the television, but in the prime
of his
life. I question him. He was quite a short, slim spirit, dressed in a
three
piece suit and plagued with what appeared to be terrible halitosis.
I
speak in the old fashioned language traditionally used
on spirits, but which seem a trifle ridiculous.
I ask him for something I can use in my battle against the modern
world. He
says nothing and shakes his head. I conjure and command him in the name
of
Asmodeus, Belzebub and the High Lord Satanas.
I
am stuck blind, I can see nothing. I have in my hands a tape recorder
which I
switch on. He moves behind me and speaks to me over my left shoulder
and I
repeat his words into the device. Panicked as I am I cannot afford to
lose this
chance.
I
have demanded a new revelation, a message for the age. He delivered me
the
following revelation. He seemed to have been expecting me. Over my left
shoulder he dictated the following treatise.
TREATISE ON
POSSIBILITISM
The object
of this treatise is to expound the philosophy here described as
possibilitism.
The term 'possibilitism' derives from the expression 'infinite
possibility',
which is central to that which is defined as the enlightenment
principle.
The ideas
and beliefs which circulate in society can apparently make a difference
to the
way in which life is experienced. People have all kinds of opinions,
felt with
all degrees of intensity. Which of these would deserve a leading place
in
whatever future it is desired to construct? Upon what principles can we
justly
base any decision? Some of these ideas attract and seem true, while
others
repel and seem false. How may it be determined that some should have
authority
and some not, and how are we to make the selection? Perhaps I want to
say that the
ideas which attract me are rational, and those which repel are not. But
if you
take the opposite position, on what ground can I oppose you? Whatever
criterion
is proposed, including those involving the abandonment of reason as a
guide,
there are alternatives on offer.
Reader
fear not. I have decided not to give you the
whole of this somewhat turgid and
repetitive oration.
So the
enlightenment principle may be used to support the dissemination of any
idea
except insofar as it presents a direct threat to itself, that is the
defence,
upholding and promotion of the understanding of infinite possibility.
Insofar as
we require a firm decision of policy, where the coexistence of
incompatibles is
not possible, the upholding promotion and defence of the enlightenment
principle itself answers to our requirements.
Confused as I am by this fold of words and new
ideas, I can at least see that he is saying something completely
different from
what he was famous for. I ask for an explanation, and he gives me what
came out
as several more pages of comment. Not wanting to read the comment as
I’m sure
you don’t I will save it for a later insert.
Two friends meet up one evening. Don’t think I am
without friends. One holds out his finger to the other, ‘sniff that’.
He sniffs.
“It seems a bit like fireworks”. “It’s Veronica's bum”.