FALL SERIES VIII- 11.21.'11

44.  Dark Lady

Mixed Media 12' x 5' 1988

"Dark Lady" is an image of "chilling" presence, according to some. This work simply presents an essential, though dark element of mystical consciousness. This is a sculptural painting in a series of large partitions, at least two sided, meant to operate on two levels: 1. It represents a means of passage between two ‘worlds.’ 2. It is a spiritually or psychically catalytic object aiding in that passage. It helps effect that shift of consciousness to a specific category of ‘other’ states. See also #37, #70 and #80-  http://ecai.org/NEPSIS/ImageCatalog-PrimarySet/index.html

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The text of our story, MOTHER MARY AND THE BEAST, was discovered as follows:  "I found the following scraps of a story among the belongings of a relative who had passed away. I was the executor of her estate.  We fell under the spell of the story that arises from these scraps.  I suspect others will too.  Though both my wife and I were completely mystified by the content.  There was a stack of journals, but many of the pages are missing or illegible from both fire and water.  Still, there is enough left.  I’ve divided the contents of the scraps numerically.  A new number indicates a new legible discovery.   They seem to have been written as a diary.  Parts read like a novel.  And there were some cards and letters hidden between the pages.  But because of the letters and certain other bits of evidence, I suspect that this is less fiction than autobiography.  You’ll see as we go along.  My relative’s personality unfolds in a most unexpected way.  One would not expect such violence and intrigue in the life of such a beautifully holy, Roman Catholic nun as we knew her to be!  Nor could we have guessed that just reading somebody’s journal would have changed our lives, would have put us in such danger…  We think the public needs to know about this.  

Needs to be warned!"

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...  Father Steve woke as the tires of his car were hitting the caution strips along the side of the road and as he entered the isolated town of Bishop, California.  He steered the car back into the appropriate lane.  And he was alone in the car, as he started to look for a motel in town.  He soon found one, the Creekside Best Western.  As he walked into their spacious, surprisingly comfortable lobby, he greeted the receptionist, thinking to himself that’s its best if he gets some rest, before he tries to find his quarry…  Before he confronts Jack Hartley.  Then he remembers again his waking dream experience with Agnes.  A quiver of distaste and desire shakes his whole body.  He remembers that as he had parked his car, he thought that he saw blood on the passenger seat in his car.  He was sure that his mind was playing tricks on him because of the fatigue, hunger and the monotony of the drive.  He was quite sure but for the flashbacks to his youthful indiscretions.  His young, wild oats!

Next day, the receptionist tells him that he’s the second to ask for the place he sought as he asked for directions. ‘Who else asked?  A group of men.  One in particular.  But I couldn’t give them exact directions.  Had to go in the back to look it up.  But they were gone when I came out with these directions.’ 

Jack hurried to his car.  Was aghast to see the front passenger seat to be stained with small amounts of what looked like dried blood.  Yes, definitely.  But this was not his car.  It belonged to the Seminary.  A company car.  Maybe he just hadn’t noticed yesterday because he had so many things on his mind.  It could have come from anything.  He was horribly disturbed by everything now.  But first he had to get to Jack.  And who are these other people!  Driving too fast on a dirt road up into the mountains, he leaned over to the glove compartment to retrieve the small handgun his NRA father had taught him to use so long ago.

2.0 Continued (Notes)

MEMORANDUM

Holy Week

To: The Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles

From:  Jack Hartley

Re: Physiology—not just sex--Cosmology, and Ecclesiology—not just the Roman Church.

Over the past few weeks a number of issues that I have been deeply concerned about for many years have become clear in a poignant…

(SOME TEXTS LOST OR ILLEGIBLE HERE, I include this much due to the interesting notes as much as anything else.  But here is what remains. Ed.)

… My next topic of coalescence involves an old concern that is not so positive. In fact, it has been an issue of troubling fascination and contention. But it also concerns important changes in our cosmological point of view. I suppose it started with the trials and tribulations of Fr. Chris Anderson in Orange County over ten years ago. Though my studies have been concerned with larger academic areas, i.e., the character of personal identity formatted in the constructs of culture and religions, a small but important aspect of this study is sexual identity. This includes hetero- and homo-eroticism as well as some anthropologically verified complexes that might now be illegal, but in some cases at least, might be something quite other than abuse.

My suspicion is that some people involved in what could be determined to be "molestation" legally might be operating in response to an irresistible anthropological imperative. It's not that there are not real sex offenders. But, in the tragic readjustment of nature beneath the overwhelming construct of technocracy, certain natural psycho/physical dynamics in human nature long thought necessary for human personality and society, now are considered to be illegal, even abusive.

I'm not advocating a campaign here. Nor, am I refuting current moral systems. I'm simply directing you towards mitigating anthropological data ...

What I have discovered is that outside the consideration of real psychosis, this dynamic of adult males initiating adolescent males into manhood sexually, ritually, culturally, and spiritually, is common in the history of cultures and religion. Common not only long ago in primordial cultures but up through classical eras, in Greco-Roman times, then on and off, here and there up to our own period. This issue in such cosmologies, typical then, reflects a bisexual origin in the non-temporal source of all things, godhead itself (or at least in male chromosome count—males have both "X" and "Y" chromosomes.)

It was readings of Taoist Chi-gung energy manuals coupled with a secondary Greek myth about Dionysius* having to "submit 'like a woman' to a phallus made from a fig tree, in order to free his mother from Hades." Perhaps that means to liberate masculine and feminine creative energies. Further, it was this combined with the long held awareness about Shamanistic practices of initiation insisting on some degree of trans-sexual ordeal; and Animistic cultures that include homo-erotic interludes for all young men coming of age, that finally made me understand this in such a clear and positive way. (I don't know about young women. Nature enforces the change to adulthood in them physically when they start to menstruate!)

In the Taoist source, it was made clear that orgasm starts at the prostate gland in both hetero- and homosexual experiences. According to Tantric (Tibetan Buddhist and Hindu) sources, it is yogic stimulation of these areas that awakens the Goddess* who is in command of all creative light, energy, and power in the universe. If these psychic/spiritual physiologies are accurate at all, and there is considerable positive evidence in that regard, then it is no wonder that so many creative and religious people are often subject to this experience, ala poor Dionysius. No wonder gay people enjoy anal sex so much. Besides the intimacy, it seems for some to evoke light filled energy, as well as visionary, poetic, and artistic sensibilities. The above mentioned cultures were all cultures that valued such sensibilities highly.

Still, the poignant political and spiritual question is; why does this issue evoke such a hysterical response now? It is beyond all reason. Why is this "abomination" cited from the Old Testament Book of Leviticus and the rest of that book often ignored? This issue in St. Paul's "Letters" is exploited religiously by some who consider the Scriptures as absolute authority, while the fact that the great saint was completely wrong about the much more important--most important Parusia, tends to be over looked. Christ, it seems, did not say anything about the topic, or very much about sex generally, according to the Gospels. I wonder why the crisis now?

This is, of course, besides the vast amounts of money some people have made off the Church, pressuring conformity to more to positivist and commercial values.

...I'm not saying that there are not real sex offenders who should be "outed" --but for the career advancement for journalists, District Attorneys and Sheriffs whose public careers depend on or profit from media attention? These cases are heavily prejudiced by such elements. I think that within the sexual revolution of our era is an over-reaction that is nothing less than a hatred--or at least a repression--of Christ's own metaphysical practice of celibacy, and therefore ours. It amounts to a curtailment of religious freedom...

Well, why beat a dead horse. The image of Spartan soldiers and Roman legions come to mind from societies in which the homo-erotic experience was common, as a disclaimer to any 'kinder, gentler' rule that might claim homo-eroticism as a guarantee to the moderation of aggression. The scientific discernment of psychology seems permanently divided on the topic. Too bad scientific detachment is not further extended into cultural norms. The only identity we are willing to accept generally is the current norm. As if there were nothing else worthwhile and never has been. Where is the freedom in that? Especially, as our perception is limited more and more by materialistic marginalization of any form of metaphysical practice or cosmological sensibility such as represented by celibacy--and along with it compassion for the elderly, the unborn, the poor, the weak, any marginalized group not economically or politically strong enough to protect itself!

When I asked a psychologist friend once long ago if homosexuals are sick in this regard, he responded "some are, some aren't." I know people who will not appreciate my tying this issue to ancient religious Steveterns or the psychic and spiritual energy systems of Asia (that have codified the physio/spiritual elements including this area of concern). But it's not just Asia. Billions of people around the world, Christian and non-Christian, believe in these body/mind/spirit systems that seek to balance the dualistic energies--empty/full, hot/cold, male/female, etc. This includes the American government and the American Health Insurance industry that is willing to pay for such (chi) energy based therapies as acupuncture!!!

I suppose that this issue cannot be decided without developing a cosmology that fully and compassionately integrates all the elements of psyche and nature, science and culture in some healthier light. We are not a world of individuals, but an animate body constituted by nature and Spirit. I fear for our poor culture and the world. These issues are veiled sympSteves, both in individuals and whole peoples, of profound inner and organizational conflict. Other sympSteves increase as well; human starvation has doubled to 1 billion in the last decade, for instance--The implications reach into the eco-system itself since technocracy re-defines our role in nature. To deny the sacred nature of the world, is like denying the humanity of slaves, a common tactic that makes exploitation possible.

And what a frail protest this is... After all these years.

Bishop, I thought that it would be important to keep you informed about my more pithy reflections, so that you might help, if you like, to guide their development as time passes. And so that you may have a fuller reservoir of reference when it comes to making decisions about... well, you know.

Another controversial issue that I should mention before I conclude regards pornography, or at least, the appearance of pornography. Though I might find this topic a little unnerving, like the topic above, I believe there to be a communication of great significance in the attention paid to these matters now. It might bode ill indeed if we fail to hear what is said in this whispering, this 'tiny sound.'

Since physiology is as unavoidable as cosmology in the study of the history of religion, sex remains central. Not just because of the implications of biology, but also because so much of our psychological and emotional time-spent sensibility is focused on sexually related matters. Let me sum up my consideration of these topics by reference to a recently published novel, VOX, by Nicholson Baker. The whole of this work is graphically explicit telephone sex. Heterosexual sex. To tell the truth, I was rather embarrassed by much of the conversation that is this book. But at the same time, admired the honest depiction of a process that ended up not in an orgasm of cheap titillation, but something else. Through the arousal came a human voice reaching--through the ether--for relationship. And that is what is accomplished. Space, matter and technology are transcended--or justified!--by being the medium in which friendship developed. Physiology rephrased. Something quite human happened, beyond any of the isolated elements of this encounter. Not that something positive is usually the product of pornographic excursions. Obviously. But what is one looking for in this sort of experience. Satisfaction? What is the process that leads to an oh-so-relational whole, the Eucharist--the Body of Christ. Popular understanding of religion, and perhaps as often the very idealistic expression of the tail-end of a cathartic process—i.e. becoming holy--does not always sufficiently credit the process involved. The "end" of religious practice is a state of being in which 'adultery--and every other deception--does not even arise in one's heart.' If VOX describes what I believe it does, i.e., a process of salvation--real temporal/non-temporal relationship--is not such an open approach to human spiritual realization justifiable? In this, I do not believe that I am mixing major and minor premises. Friendship is friendship. If that is with God or neighbor should make no difference. Love cannot be partial, except that we experience it partially until we advance to its divine fullness. That being the case, then our psychosomatic processes are the very means, not the obstacle, to such fullness. Certainly such an open, yet completely localized means might be more widely approachable. Or, I should say, it is an approach more widely practiced. This is especially so, since we all receive a scientific education, more or less. So, the ancient body taboos have less impact now. I realize that most of us, culture itself, needs parameters. Though as well, most of us are just lazy, preferring a nice, clear rule to keep or break, to the hard work of honesty and salvation.

Eminence,  I've "studied" these issues for at least the past ten years, sometimes at great personal cost. I hope they have some value for people and the Church. My own fascination with these topics quiets down, now that I've come to some better understanding for myself. I will pursue it no further as before.

Sincerely,

M.

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P.S. *Gods or Goddesses indicate an anthropomorphized sensibility about the participation of every moment, power and place in the divine condition. In the context of this memorandum, 'gods' refer to archetypal figures that engage a fuller spectrum of human perception. For "How Dionysius Saved His Mother From Hell" reference, see Halpern, Paul. The Cyclical Serpent, Plenum Press, New York, 1995. Also see, Williams, W. L. The Spirit and the Flesh.  Beacon Press, Boston, 1986. For Shamanistic initiation, see "Introduction" in Shamanism,  Eliade,  M.

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* I suppose that what generated particular interest in these questions is that a priest friend, Fr. Chris, was accused of molestation. I was shocked not only by his experience but by the degree of hysteria and opportunism in the public response. That commenced for me a ten-year investigation that has led to the surprising conclusions above.

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Paranormal phenomenon is not taken very seriously in most critical commentary on mysticism. However, examples are usually included in the gospels of the world. (See ‘Sarx and Soma’ the Carnal and Natural- Chastity, Caritas, and the Diamond Sutra.) As well, any treatment of Shamanism must include sorcery, though it is often a small aspect of larger traditions. PRAYERS OF PETITION --i.e. seeking some change in the world from a spiritual agency--are universal, even among ‘unbelievers’ under duress and bear a striking similarity to the rituals and spells of sorcery. The Nepsis Foundation is rife with paranormal phenomena, but these examples are the spin-offs of a more religious vocation

           

2.1

A LETTER

Sister Mary sat at her writing table near the window over looking the desert expanse; it was a kind view in the morning and evening and sparkled with distant little lights at night.  Only during the day in the summer was it punishing.  It was twilight now as she sat to put pen to paper.

Dear Sr. Celestine,

I just cast an I Ching to see if that Chinese Oracle might have some insight about our challenges.  It said something about the judicious use of poisons.  How, in the right dose and circumstance, poisons become medicine.   Very strange.  I’m not sure what it means.  #57, if you are interested to look it up.  Yes, Yes, I know you don’t approve our use of these non-Christian ‘scriptures’ and the Old Testament prohibits such things as oracles. But some of these traditions contain great wisdoms that the people who wrote the Old Testament could never have guessed, and if some is true, wise, good or beautiful then, it is of Christ.  Christ is the New Covenant, the New Testament supercedes the Old for Christians, the Gospel trumps the rest of the scriptures and the Church is the living tradition—and except for a handful of issues, leaves most questions up to an informed conscience. After all, the very fact that Jesus was thought to be the Son of God radically separated him from his own Old Testament tradition and moved him into the religious mainstream of surrounding cultures.  He takes all of it to another level entirely and opens up the world of God’s creation to His inspiration....  To say the Spirit only operates through one institution we call the Vatican Curia, or the World Council of Churches, or whatever, is blasphemy.  Rather, where the Spirit operates —and that is everywhere-- is the Church.  There is great insight in these old systems of hard won wisdoms.  Especially, I find this to be true of … Well, sorry Sister, for the rant.  Nonetheless, that’s the way of the future if we are true to His Way.

I will send this letter to your post office box for safety’s sake.  I wouldn’t want it to get in the wrong hands as it might if I send it to at your residence in the Motherhouse. Perhaps you should even destroy it after you’ve read it.  Though, no one will believe what I am about to tell you in any case.  This will be waiting for you when you return from Rome.  I can’t tell you what I suspect on the phone.  There must be some record of what’s happening, just in case something happens to me. 

Brother Benedict is coming in a few minutes to take me to the Cathedral to have a private audience with His Eminence at his residence there—Hisness said that we would be less likely to be overheard.  He only half believes most of this stuff.  Can’t blame him.  I barely believe it, until I’m actually faced with situations such as in the studio a few weeks ago. 

Something happened.  Jack called me before he went up into the mountains and said he had had an apparition of Agnes.  But not the Holy kind.  I think it was the bi-location of a witch… This is Brother Benedict’s take on it.  Myself, I believe it when I see it.  So much of this stuff is BS!  Excuse me, Sister.  But some of it’s real.  It’s like sorting through manure to find a few undigested seeds.  

Benedict is a good man.  Himself an exorcist and a preacher.  His work in Asia against the Evil One is legendary.  Remember that popular book EARTHLY POWERS?  Our friend could have been the model for that book.  He thinks that the caves behind Jack’ studio are, as we thought, a portal to other places on the earth and Agnes finally made it through.  He thinks she found such a cavern on her island of banishment among the Ghosts of the Caribs.  You remember that I was against that as her ‘discipline’ for exploring too much in the realms of Black Magic. 

Her expulsion from our order was a mistake-- as well as immoral.   First I didn’t really believe it.  Second we are supposed to embrace the sinner, convert them through real love, not chase them off.  I hate the sin, but—well Agnes is our sister.  I don’t think, even if it is true, that we are in the business of punishing people.  Putting her out just made her worse.  Abandoned.  I did think she needed to be confined.  She had become insane!  But the Realm of Ghosts!   That is cruel I think and we shouldn’t be doing that sort of thing.  I know you don’t agree. You think that the Ghosts will not only keep her confined but will rehabilitate her, but I haven’t seen any evidence of it.  How is that supposed to work exactly?

Brother says that apparently she has learned how to travel through the sacred caves of the world using the radio wave-like psychic transmissions of underground gem-troves for her travel schedule. Everybody used to tease you about being named after a pagan prophesy about psychic energies rather than a saint.  Extrapolating on those books, the psyche of the earth is made up of energy Steveterns and the crystal gem troves underground are like nerve clusters.  So many of them have been ruined by mining, but there are still deep secret places and routes that might be used by the ones with enough knowledge and personal power.   To tell the truth, I’m not so sure that’s how it works, anymore than sex is the basis of magic, which is what some believe.  There are other energies, as well as the Spirit.  But that’s the lore.  Perhaps it’s metaphoric.  But it works for these people. 

I think that she did it on the back of her Golem.  That horrible creature of hers!  But it, and she, are becoming more refined and powerful— more murderous.  But she’s not totally responsible.  She’s insane.  Benedict thinks their arrival in Jack’ studio left them bloodied and weakened because that’s what crystal travel does.  It tears you up.  Thus, Jack survived.  Thank God for that.  I think he thought that he had killed the Golem and chased Agnes back into the crystalline matrix of Mother Earth-- Her psyche!  Well, the physical means of transmission for her psyche.  Like our neurons, etc.   

But, he ran!  I’m not sure why.  When I went down there, the Golem was dying and Agnes was not to be seen.  I also thought she had returned to the Matrix.  But after much consideration, how could she without the Golem? 

I’m not completely clear how it really works.  But I know you can’t kill a golem. There is nothing to kill.  Its material reality can be anything available to the mystic, usually soil.  The mystic animates it with his or her own psychic energy.  Maybe one has to kill the mystic to kill the golem.   Could be wrong about all of this, but if it is Agnes and if she finally figured out how to use the sacred caves for travel and other things, we are in trouble!  It means she is no longer confined to her Island.  And she’s mad. 

Sometime between the time I thought I saw her monster dead, or dying, on the floor of the wrecked studio and the Sheriff’s arrival, it had disappeared.  Maybe it went back into the cave.  ... But it might be out in the world as well.

I fear for both Jack and Fr. Steve.  But I think our good Sister Hermit will be able to protect them up in the mountains.  Of course, I could be wrong about Agnes.  The ancient lore says these things are possible.  I wonder.  The evidence can be interpreted differently.  That long-distance psychic travel is really hard.  One must disintegrate in one place and reconstitute somewhere else.  That might account for the blood.  Maybe they did it wrongly.  It was bad enough that she was actually able to create a golem.  You know what I mean, don’t you?  Making a creature from the mind of a very powerful mystic.  Psychic energies projected outside the mind that finally congeal to actual, physical form.  They tend to mischievous, these monsters.  And completely amoral. 

Benedict thinks it might be that it’s she and her creature who killed our dear Father Robillard.  I can’t understand why or how they dared gain access to the consecrated Seminary grounds.  Her sort of evil mischief was not his expertise.  He focused on demons and possessions.  Lies. His expertise was the Great Lie and its demons. Demons are like golems, extentions and creations of the Prince of Lies.  But they are not really creations, re-creations rather.   Only the Lord God can truly create anything...

Excuse me sister, I digress again.  I’ve been around too many colorful people, for too long.  I’m sure you will appreciate it, though. 

Anyway, this is only part of what my visit to the Archbishop is about.  In fact, I don’t know what I should tell him just yet.  I’ve known him since he was a student in Pius IX Elementary School when I was Principal there.  He was a good kid, no angel.  Just mischievous.  Trusts me entirely.  That’s why I want to be especially careful in these reports.  I would be anyway, but…

The other reason for my visit to His Eminance is about that group that seems so hostile to the Church.  SNIP.  It is a group of lawyers and ‘victims’ of priest sex abuse.  It’s so hard to distinguish the true victims from gold diggers when so much money is involved.   There are law firms in every big city who make a very rich living off suing the Church.  Statistically, there is less sex abuse among the Catholic clergy than the norm for the rest of the culture.  But it doesn’t matter.  Newspaper sales skyrocket when there’s a juicy Church sex or money scandal.  Media and Money, the new deities of the Modern Age. 

Of course, the Church’s teaching on sexuality is so easily mangled.  The popular ideas about it are a temptation for the clever preacher to influence and control people with easy do’s and go to Hell if you don’ts. 

And then there is the anthropology.  Benedict says that many cultures of the past that not only accepted homosexuality, but considered it an honor when a grown man would help initiate a post pubescent adolescent boy into sexuality and it magics.  That’s what Benedict says, though he’s very conservative about the question and considers it evil.  I also have read the studies.  It does not have to be interpreted or practiced in an evil way.  The transsexual was considered magical, often considered protected by God.  Of course, most of the abuse cases involve heterosexuals.  But it’s the gay ones that get most of the attention and blame. 

The whole thing has had, as you know, a devastating effect on the rest of the clergy.  Ashamed to wear the collar in public sometimes…   I wonder what will come of it.

There’s Brother Benedict now.  Let’s meet next week.  I’m anxious to know what you found in the Vatican Library.  I will mail this in L.A. Have a good thought for us, my friend, to be empowered to face the Enemy with kindness and courage and intelligence.  You have some idea what we are up against now.

Every kind regard, your friend in Christ,

Mary

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For tens of thousands of years the magical figure of the "Berdasche" was of nearly universal importance in human culture and religion. The significance of  the full spectrum to which this persona belongs is of a magnitude that its removal/repression among Old and New Testament peoples requires such violence to the body of being, certainly to the body of humanity, as to merit attention in this 'history' of religion …

2.2

The meeting with the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles must not have been remarkable, or very much so, because on the way home, Sister Mary had little to say and just seemed tired when she asked her driver, Br. Benedict:

“Well, Brother, what did you do while I was inside?  You said you had some errands.

“First, I went to see some people in those flop-house hotels down the street from the Cathedral.  Some of those places are so bad, you can see through their filthy old walls.  Yea, holes in the wall of a 4^th floor walk up.  One room with a whole family.  Not that it matters about the hole, the glass in the window is broken out anyway.  I had some food and some legal news for a family I know there.  They were having a political meeting.  But they can’t say too much.  The slavers who run the sweat-shops where they work report them to Immigration if they try to organize or even complain.  But so many levels of our culture have profited from their cheap labor, from the desperation of families in their home countries.  Terrible.  Terrible places. 

(Silence ensued as Brother Benedict's huge old car rumbled along.  Its big white wall tires seemed to roll rather than drive like more modern cars. )  

“When I finished there I went over to Chinatown and bought some boxes of Cha Shu Bau, you know those white steamed buns filled with sweet pork and stuff.  The guys back at the Monastery who were in China really love those things.  So a couple times a year, I like to surprise ‘em.  There will be some happy old monks in the monastery tomorrow!

Sister smiled at the thought about those monks she’d known for so long... Then her old, but still excellent memory, nearly photographic, went back to a note Jack had written to her a few months before with a passage from his journal—Jack was often amazed by her ability to remember texts verbatim after only one reading.  It’s one of the foundations of their friendship.  This note however pertained to part of the topic of her meeting with the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles just an hour before:

“After traveling for a week with a friend, John… in northern California, I had a surprising dream. In the dream, on a grassy hill there is a pavilion tent. I approach. Through the tent flap, a young man, lying naked on a bed, legs dangling over the bedside, seems to be waiting for me. The situation is spread with attraction and danger. The young man lay on some softly lit, rich fabric covering the bed. A boy/man. I approach more closely-- I nurse/suckle the (energetic) milk from him as I spread further his muscular, but no longer hairless, young legs.

The scene of the dream shifts to a large procession. A group of aristocratic women in medieval or renaissance garb move from behind the tent toward a river below and distant mountains. A thunderstorm is building and threatening above and behind the mountains.

The scene shifts again to the river's side where I am trying to pull by rope, a heavy log, up, over the bottom branches of a large oak tree.

A vast flood charges, dark and thundering down the river valley. Both the tree and I disappear in the powerful waters. There is a sense that the waters are destiny and great peace... Not any kind of punishment or judgement.  Identity, ineffable and luminous, if any word or image could describe the experience.

The important and surprising point of this dream is that when I awoke, I was flooded with an energy of enormous delight. Energy. For hours after I woke, sensations of ebullient joy flowed through me. Not just joy, but energy. Flowing, endless energy.  Delight and energy satisfied every pore and part of my body.  For weeks after, if I told the story or even remembered the dream, I would again be suffused in delight. What enabled me to evoke these levels of light-filled delight? The erotic elements in the dream?  Not exactly. I believe that the dream indicated a shift between masculine and feminine poles in my psyche that engaged states of consciousness flooded with amorphous, transsexual (transcendent of opposites) delight.

Such states of consciousness might be the foundation of culture as well, since such dualistic (pluralistic) states and their resolution/transcendence are, I believe, the underlying content and construct of human perception. Homoerotic love, since it is able to evoke feelings in individuals as powerful as the heterosexual drive to procreate, the biological urge to propagate in any species, indicates a capacity to redirect major elements of human personality. The homoerotic emotion indicates a condition free of otherwise inexorable biological logic. The feminine, the earth, the storm are evoked here…

At this point, Sister smiled tightly, eyes still closed, gently shook her head, murmured to herself about the passage she had just remembered, ‘one can know too much,’ as Brother Benedict interrupted her musings, much belated, after a long silence:

“Look, Sister!  A car on fire.  My dear Lord!

On opposite side of the freeway just at the top of Cajon Pass just before they transited from Interstate 15 freeway to a two lane highway skirting the north side of the San Gabriel Mountains to their homes west of there,  a car had burst in flames that now fully engulfed the car and billowed up, maybe 50 feet.  Somehow it seemed connected to Jack’ dream!  Hard to say how…

Should we stop?

Maybe.  There are already fire trucks and police.  Already there’s lots of people.  I’m old and tired.  “No.  Please take me home Benedict.  The best I could do for them is already in my heart on its way to heaven. 

The monk takes that as a command from a superior and they continue their way home.

How was your meeting with the Cardinal, Sister?

What?  Hmmm…  Oh.   Yes, well…  It was OK.  A little scary, really.  There was someone else with the Cardinal when I walked in.  I’m surprised they let me in while he was there.  Maybe the receptionist didn’t know he was there.

Who was it?

Well, I’m not sure of the name.  But I think he’s the Hispanic version of the part played in the movies by Robert DeNiro, Marlon Brando, and that other one…  Can’t think of his name. 

Pacino? Al Pacino?

Yes, I think this guy was in real life the head of the Mexican Mafia, Joe something. 

JOE MORENO! Why was HE there?

I think for the same reason I was there.  They seemed to be discussing the enemies of the Church.  This organization, SNIP that has sued, or has supported people who sued the Church so successfully over these clerical molestation scandals.  I saw a piece of paper with a list of names, some of which I recognized.  The Cardinal and Joe Moreno were out on the balcony, when I walked in.  They didn’t see me at first. 

Do you think the Church is going to use its influence with people like Moreno to knock off some of it greedier critics?  I don’t believe it.

I’d hate to believe it.  But, maybe the bishops are that desperate.  Too many dioceses bankrupted by these lawsuits.  And there’s something else.  The billions going to these lawsuits are not being used for Catholic schools, new churches, renovations of old churches, and all the rest.  That’s a lot of jobs and contracts!  Some of Moreno’s people are vicious.  Kill their own mothers for a lot less than that!

Oh my God.  Surely the archbishop was trying to talk Moreno out of it?

I don’t know.  I hope…

The string from which life hung seemed thinner just then as silence once again filled the car.   Sister Mary finally dozed off.  Benedict continued the long drive back through a star encrusted darkness to their high desert homes, away from, just far enough away from, the glaring lights and feral roar of Los Angeles.

 __________________________________

3.0

Editor: Then, from a separate,  partially missing, journal:

I think that you are misinterpreting my affections,  dear Fr. Stephen.

No, I think not. Aren’t all these delusionary mental palaces of yours- all these theories- really just a denial that you are remarkably unsuccessful in love?  That you really wanted a relationship with me and maybe others and it never worked? Be honest, Jack. I just didn’t want a physical relationship with you. First, I prefer women and second,  I really want to be celibate.  For God. For the Church. For the People of God.

Well, Steve. That rather takes my breath away.

I don’t doubt it...

(Fr. Steve has found Jack where the directions he had been given led him.  Now surrounded by mountainous forests, they immediately launched into their old topics...)

You will be surprised to know that, yes, I do believe that you want to be celibate, as I do, and for the very same reasons that you mention.

Do you?

Yes, but how we practice that, how we pursue it, is different. You repress. I work through.  And my ideas about the people of God and the Church are a lot broader than yours.  I do definitely intend to get to the ideal, but in a more healthy and creative way. Shamanism...

Come on Jack! Stop with all this—‘shamanism.’ You are a homosexual or at least a bi-sexual and you refuse to accept your own dysfunction. Why can’t you just accept it. You’ve never been able to form a mature relationship with any woman but your mother. All your shamanism was just a psychological escape from the wreckage of that very modern battle between your mother and father that you project as a universal conflagration. All that fighting when you were a kid.

God, Steve,  (Jack hesitates, for a moment unsure of himself) that’s rather passé psychology. Even if it were true, so what? The important word that should follow all that is "and"...

(He sinks his consciousness into the Tan Tien, the navel chakra. The place of amoral battle in Tai Chi; problem resolving, and magical transformation. Fr. Steve has scored a hit. Jack now for a moment is suspicious of his own motivation. But from years of practice he reaches for inner resources to engage and continue the battle.)

Steve, you are wrong. Human personality, and even sexuality, is more plastic than you can admit. Homosexuality has become such an issue because our culture is desperately unbalanced by the domineering, aggressive, until-now-male ethos required by a commercial,  military society.  My parents were products of their culture and its values.  But they had healthy insights as well.  The larger communal personality subconsciously seeks balance. Certain genetic pools, perhaps, are gifted to respond.

Jack, give me a break and stick to the point. I’ve worked hard to overcome my sexual drives.  I’ve really tried hard to come to terms with my own sexual hang-ups. Everybody has them. Just be honest about it, don’t you see. Or do you fear the stereotype so much-- weird men haunting public bathrooms with furtive glances at every passerby.

No, Steve.  Don’t you see? It wasn’t just affection and a kind of physical bonding that we exchanged when we were young. It was an awakening of deeper parts of who we are.  It didn’t really have anything to do with our sexual orientation. It had to do with... well, don’t you remember how dismayed we were after the first time? How shocked? We didn’t even talk for weeks. But then, we continued.  Don’t you remember,  how at one point,  I ‘saw’ into you.  Saw your real vocation.  I saw what took you months, or was it years, in therapy with that psychiatrist of yours.  That’s when you really panicked. And broke it off.

Long pause.

Jack, I was pretty confused. I thought that you were evil- that you had fooled... everybody.  No, I still believe that… Yet,  there is something that seems so attractive-- true to what you say-- no, you have…  You could have helped find my father.  Why did you leave us then?  You were there in the Church that day.   I saw you.  Where did he go?  Why wouldn’t you ever tell us what you know? 

Steve,  please.   No, not please. You will listen to me.  (Jack now speaks with a voice almost not his own.  Low and sensual. Yet a pure force somehow. For Jack and those like him,  all things are a vehicle. Even things that for others would be sin,  for him in certain special circumstances,  must be allowe- The Mississippi has flooded as never before. Its headwaters were a place of pilgrimage for Jack. Jack’s soul flooded, with destiny.) You loved me then,  Steve. You love me still.  The woman. The man. The man. The woman. We will move together. We will dance Hera’s glory. Kali’s joy. You are called.

 No,  Jack.  Please. Move away from me.  Don’t touch me.  Tell me about my father.

(Even as Steve resists, Jack arms slowly writhe, snake-like about him.  But this is not a physical joining.  Sexuality is only a guise of deeper unions.  This is a union of persons.  In this embrace, the "two are made one," their energies merge. What is necessary is the shift of consciousness that reveals 'original' timeless energies. The following is the sense of their exchange.  But the experience was really a series of sensations,  radical states of consciousness rapidly accessed and passed through, indescribable, ontological shifts.  Hetero- and Homo-sexuality. One is the mutation of the other-- a simple working of "X" and "Y" chromosomes? …The trouble is that people stop short. Are impeded, are indifferent! but mostly stop themselves. They settle for marriage, or for being Gay, for example. There has developed in our times an "incapacity" to deal with our in-depth potential for great transformation. The cultural support system, (religion as a transformative agent rather than an opiate, at the center of culture), that encouraged the development of that transformative attribute are gone. People now are usually only pushed in that direction by personal tragedy.

Many pages missing here. [Editor]

…

“I don't know, Steve. I don't intend to hurt anybody. I don't intend anything.

“Jack, come with me. Let's go home. I'll talk to our superiors, get them to leave you alone.

No, Steve,  nevermind. That’s all fine.  Whatever the case, I’m on retreat now and should get going; Human creativity, intercourse.... with the divine. Winter comes early here High Sierra. And soon I will meet our friend. The ‘other’ one is determined to find me. He wants to kill me.  And he is not alone.  Maybe he will want absolution. Do you think? To be free... finally after all that... from that burden he carries. The Absolution of Heaven... Mediated through that which opens mind and heart to the sweet breath of freedom; actions that conjure... the Sacrament, the Sweet Breath of Shiva! Lord Christ, the sacred bridge, sacramental vision and authority: Resurrection,  Ascension, Parusia,  all at once, the art of it. Sweet freedom.  Come if you like-- or go your own way...

Jack, stop!  I’ve come to tell you something.  I’m afraid I’ve got bad news for you.  Our dear old friend,  Fr. Robillard, is dead.  It appears that he committed suicide!

Jack’ hand dropped from the handle of the gate that lead out away from these sheltering huts of his retreat, out to the Steveh into wilderness.  He turned in disbelief, turned and stood staring at Fr. Steve.  Then, from the depths of his love and respect for the old man, he growled:

NEVER!

At that moment, shots rang out.  One bullet flashed past Steve's head, another slammed into the wall of the enclosure. 

Jack pulls out his gun, as both jump down to cover behind the wall.  Jack begins to mumble prayers of defense and conquest…  After just a few minutes, that seem much, much longer, Jack inches up to gain a view of the tree line from where the shot had come.  Instead of returning fire, he stands in amazement and motions for Jack to join him.  They both stand to see in the moonlight a woman with extraordinary martial grace beating the hell out of five big men.  She seemed to move in a radiance of silver light.  Any of the most extraordinary martial arts movies would have been proud to include this scene of mortal combat.  The fighting continued until all the hostiles were wrecked heaps on the forest floor.

Agnes wiped them out!  Agnes saves Jack and Steve.  She walks towards them now in no more than the silver light of the moon.

Gratefully they thank her…  She both terrifies and entrances them.  She convinces them to go with her…  “There is much about the passing of Father Robillard that you need to know.  I want to take you to a place where you will meet people who know what you want to know.”  But rather than convincing them by word, she enchants them (with Stephanie’s crown of glory- More about that later.) She envelopes them in a glamour of barely discernable golden/white light and takes them through the wilderness to an opalescent chapel.  If the travel can be described at all, its like moving along the black spine of a dragon of whitest light in a pearl of protection—at once it is ferocious travel and beauty itself that sings them along the ley lines of the dragon’s spirit—another dimension of the psyche of the earth.

They enter the otherwise invisible cathedral’s front portal and exit a small side door that Agnes has chosen.  As they travel, Agnes whispers her apologies for this mode of travel and for taking them against their will.  Though by now they are more curious than resistant.  She explains the dangers of this travel that one might be lost permanently.  [lost lines here—Ed.]  …the secret of all magic has to do with creative energies that arise from the crystal-encrusted cave just above the perineum in the psychic body of human beings. Jack is already an adept, but focused on other forms of mysticism.  But that is all too complicated for what turned out to be a fairly short trip.  It is enough to say that she was able to distract them both long enough with these topics and the wonders of the pearl cathedral to arrive gracefully in an open area inside the Pale Castle,  The Achekale, without resistance or even much in the way of questions.  

In fact, it’s as if they had fallen asleep, or were sleep walking.  But Fr. Steve Shallot and Dr. Jack Harteley were awakened as if slapped on the face by the biting cold air and the terror of what they now saw as they woke.

_____________________________________

…As the claims of the American free speech movements in the second half of the 20^th Century would have it,  polite society with all its military backup and international commercial presumption does much worse things than what the use of colorful gutter language in one’s rebellion, or, what the liberation of one’s biology from cultural repression might accomplish.  In fact, the repression of natural urges can indeed be unhealthy. That is not to say that sexuality cannot be considered as sacred, mysterious, powerful or culturally volatile such that our participation in biology might well benefit from the guides, parameters and largess of religious insight.  To discipline or subliminate such urges can be intended to help effect a health ‘that passes understanding.’ 

  

3.1

Old Sister Mary,  at her retreat house near the cave above the desert, receives a report via email from the detective investigating the suicide of Father Robillard—another one of her former students.  She read it.  Printed it out.  Folded it and hid it in one of the dozens of books on the shelves. Then, deleted the file from the computer.

“The slices on his arms were in a pattern, a code-- of unknown meaning as yet.”

Sister immediately requests photos of the death scene.  Especially Father Robillard’s forearms.  What with all the wonders of the new age, she had those images in a matter of minutes on her wireless Mac OS X.   These she began to study, several reference books opened before her-  Until the ‘aha,’ hours later-- and then she understood.  She immediately called the office of the Cardinal Archbishop of Los Angeles. 

Then, she put in a call to Joe Moreno!!!

3.2

[I found this following scrap stuck to the previous page of Mother Mary’s journals.  It seemed important, but I was unsure where it went, so I included it here where I found it.  Ed.]

Simon, is introduced later in the story.  Jorge and Jaime are who it says they are below.  Stephanie was a nun in Sr. Mary’s order.  While serving in Cuba,  she was in an car accident after which she was in a coma for 40 days.  When she awoke she spoke of Chango and other Santaria deities.  And she knows how to do things like heal and curse and find things that were lost, and other such gifts.  She learned the rest from Jorge.  Stephanie is related to Agnes somehow as yet to be seen.]

“…SIMON AND JORGE, THE SANTERO, (Cuban Santaria Priest, Cuban Voodoo) HAVE AN ENCOUNTER.  ??  INTRODUCES JAIME, JOE MORENO’S RIGHT HAND MAN.   Jorge the Santero is Stephanie’s old teacher of local magical practices, and the one who treated the Cardinal Archbishop for prostate cancer!!!  This is where Jaime meets the golem.  This is how the Archbishop met Joe Moreno since he was Jorge’s biggest Patron…”

 ______________________________________________

A reconsideration of both religion and science is called for now. But in religion, this cannot be just a list of the old gods, i.e. a sterile litany of sociological inventions.  A modern mind and personality cannot just imitate or observe the venerable traditions. This reconsideration must evoke the archetypes that the Gods name—the evolution of the perception and the experience.  The major obstacle in our time is that we no longer commonly cultivate the states of consciousness through which God(s) speak. This student needed to know what the Name of God evokes in the human heart, what role it fulfills among the Elohim.

4.0

THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE ASIAN

Saint Agnes Hotel

On The Island Of Saint Agnes In The Caribbean:

PREFACE

Stephanie Agnes Katherine Mara owns this regal old hotel on the Caribbean island of Saint Agnes.  She had a relationship with Chris in a former life--A former life for Chris anyway.  Simon, a new world sorcerer, and Stephanie weave a sensuous spell of recognition and immediate transfer of knowledge—Darshan fashion, to convert Chris from his evil masters.   Stephanie's not really a vampire as some of the locals believe—nor is she a witch, but believes she is because-- perhaps, she believes this for lack of a better model so far and because of some personality problems that need to be resolved…and because she believes so totally, she experiences the qualities fabled of those beautiful monsters. At a very confused moment, she once thought she was a Republican. This since they promote some very vampiric qualities.  She soon discovered they weren’t much different from Democrats.  

She is something else entirely, yet to be revealed.  Simon, an old friend from high school days, is there to liberate her from her delusion.  She and Simon are there to initiate Chris to a new form of sorcery.  Chris is there to kill them both as commanded by his ‘employers.’  To avoid this fate, Chris must be converted and initiated in the new, more powerful ‘way.’  This is so Chris and Simon will be able to incarnate ('impersonate' successfully, to 'personate' as some anthropologists would have it) the fabled Mayan Twin Brother Warriors who travel to the cruel, but evocative underworld (Xibalba of the Popol Vu) to defeat their spiritual enemies/parons—and thus save the world.  Chris and Simon, or JACK AND SIMON   Stephanie believes she is to facilitate this intricate process by manipulating their dreams as now they sleep.  Chris is something of a muddle. Some real talent, but confused—except when he is fighting.  He understands that.  He’s a high degree martial artist.  Individual combat is his preferred model of combat.  No weapons, just the body he was born to—and the training of masters.

But something has happened in California.  An urgent message has arrived from Jack Hartley.  All of this is unveiled and experienced in a mysteriously beautiful old hotel room, as statuesque Stephanie enters through a secret door, now that the sun has set…

 ______________________________________________

Ritual in this context: A fundamental means by which spiritual, psychic, or non-material consciousness may be accessed. This might be as primal as what is implied in a shaman's bag of fetish objects, or as elaborate as a Tibetan mandala within the context of their own world views; Christian liturgy as well as the Gospel itself also provide artificial contexts by which a like 'integration of knowledge' may take place. The 'worlds' are drawn together and 'the world' is saved/destroyed.

Metaphysical practices such as pilgrimage or meditation also help describe the parameters of our discussion here--the corral from which the wild black horses of our topics strain for release. And soon...

4.1

There are moments in the Tropics when the extraordinary oppression of the heat can be delicious.  There are times in the deserts of the West when the summer sun can cleanse like a dry sauna in the snowfields of the north.  Simon Han, first generation Asian American, has felt both the healing and destruction of his training as sorcerer in such places. But a true relationship with nature is necessary to true ‘power.’  To know the power of one’s own psyche, one must know its relationship to the whole.  Otherwise, one falls into the trap of many urban wizards…

Simon’s training took him through long wilderness exposure with people who had the normal spectrum of kindness and aggression one finds among humans.  But generally there were not, in the wilds of his exposure, the wildly unbalanced or defensive personalities one finds in the urban environment.  Simon is comfortable in any climate where the magics of life glitter with a potential for survival and propagation.  In fact, shortly after graduating from the University of California, Los Angeles, Simon spent a full four seasons training in a remote Eskimo village far to the north of anything green.  Not only did Simon learn the language and culture of the place, but also he learned to survive in sub zero climates of snow and ice in what turned out to be for him a Garden of Eden rather than the freezing horror one might expect.

As a promising shaman’s apprentice, Simon spent many nights of testing, naked in the snow.  He was able to keep himself warm by generating what’s called in some places, yogic heat.  Tum-mo among the Tibetans.  It is the basis of all true magic and has various characteristics.  Heat is the useful one here. 

There will be more about the ice gardens of the north later, but now Simon is in love, and in trouble.  Perhaps the intensity of his passion is a reaction to the extreme deprivations of his earlier training.  But in trying to get away from some of the horrors of such formation, he is sweating an even more challenging romance in a hot triangle of the Caribbean. 

He and another young sorcerer have fallen in love (and lust) with a slightly older woman.  She owns an old hotel on the island of St. Agnes and she has certain powers of her own.  But they all represent other agents, or organizations of great influence in the markets and political arenas of the world.  They represent intensely competitive people who use their skills-- well, some for the good of the whole, and some not.  Some are intensely selfish and self absorbed--a cruel isolation, but addictive.  This is something of what I meant about urban delusions.  This is the history of civilization.

Though Simon Han is a Korean immigrant, he is unusually tall, well built with an inverted triangle of a torso, narrow strong hips, long straight legs.  His family came to America when he was a baby for all the usual reasons, but mainly so that Simon and his brother could find a first rate education.  One brother ‘did well.’ He became a doctor.  Simon, to his parent’s dismay was entranced by other glamours.  While at school he fell in with a group of friends fascinated with magic.  Not the slight of hand fakery of many a street performer.  They wanted the real thing.  Mysticism.  Against the advice of certain Romantic poets, they studied religion and were caught up in its perennial attractions.  Not the sort of popular religion that is just a pacifier, an opiate.  They sought ‘meetings with remarkable beings,’ with the Spirit of Being itself.  As a consequence they learned, as I will reveal, many practical crafts.  What we usually call sorcery.  In reality, it is not so easily categorized.  It has so many variations.  So many different applications.  Its character is as multitudinous as there are qualities, or characteristics in the universe. 

One such characteristic is our ability to observe the beauty of interior dispositions.  By that I mean inner states of awareness or consciousness.  The beauty of pure mysticism exposes one to the meaning and value of being.   One’s true ineffable self.  Goodness to fill one’s heart.  Beauty that satisfies every desire.  But along the way, there are other qualities, ‘powers’ if you like, that make themselves available to the searching sorcerer.  Dangerous they are.  Some vicious beyond fear.  Some trade on horror and hunger, eager to dissect one’s life like a biology student extracting the beating heart from a pinned, laboratory animal.  It’s a treacherous path.  But it has certain advantages…

Simon came on assignment to the Caribbean to seek out this woman, Stephanie.  She is thought to be a vampire of legendary beauty and power.  Ancient in her craft.  But in the process he met young Chris-- Movie star good looks and vigor.  (Heroes don’t have to be good-looking.  Though if they are real heros, their heroism gives them an incomparable appeal.) He also is on the island of St. Agnes seeking this sultry, blood-sucker queen.  Chris had only just arrived when he met Simon.  There was an odd attraction/repulsion between the two of them.  They met in the dining room at the regal old hotel where Simon lodged-- the only real hotel on the island.  Chris in his good-natured way was trying to help a family of Arab tourists order from the English menu.  Chris speaks with a high British accent that can only be learned first at mother’s knee, private (curiously called Public) schools, or maybe Ampleforth, and then Cambridge or Oxford.   It is early evening.  They had moved from the dining room next door to the bar/lounge.  After the usual tourist rituals of meeting new people and sharing a drink at the bar they face the first and least of the challenges they are about to encounter:

I’d like to continue our chat, but I have to find a hotel.  They told me here that there aren’t any rooms available for tonight.  I thought I had a reservation.  But they can’t find it.

Chris slid off the bar stool and reached for a backpack valise that was on the dark wood floor at his feet.  The blackened wood planks of the floor were at least two feet wide.  Old and worn.

But there are no other hotels.  A few little pensiones down by the bay.  But they are no more than cheap rooms for a couple of hours, if you catch my drift.  The rooms are inexpensive and so are the desperate hustlers who use them.  Why don’t you share my rooms?

Well, I… I don’t know.  I shouldn’t impose.  You’re not, uh… Well, its very kind of you, but…

No 'but' about it.  You have no choice.  If this hotel has no rooms, there’s none available on the island.  None that you’d want anyway.  The whores are very aggressive down there.  Hygiene is an alien concept.  Forget about being safe.

I can handle myself, I think--   Thanks for the offer, but…

Simon looked at Chris for a second and smiled mostly to himself, as images slipped through his mind of his Eskimo guides stopping their dog sleds in a 50 degree below zero blizzard to fix tea on their little Coleman burners.  This as they traveled to their village beyond the ice mountains... 

I’m sure you can handle just about anything.  So, you’ll be perfectly safe in my room.  It’s not really just a room.  It’s a series of little connected rooms off a wide balcony. More like alcoves.  This old, very old, building, built on a hillside as it is, has many ‘crooks and crannies.’  My ‘room’ has two beds in their own alcoves with huge thick columns in-between and their own views out over the balcony.  And there’re couches in the social area in-between.  There’s plenty of room.  I insist.  Ask the management.  They know me well.  I’m quite safe.  I’ve been coming here for years.

Well, that’s awfully good of you…

_____________________

Later, Stephanie entered that special room of Chris' and Simon's repose through a moving wall, from a complex of caves behind the wall that descend to the roots of this island.  In fact, for the initiate there are paths that guide one from this Caribbean island through caves beneath the Gulf of Mexico to caverns of Mayan usage still to this day in Mesoamerica.  For a shaman of some power, the connection extends to South and North America—and now to California!  But in these caves are preserved all the secret tablets of being--no point of perception is missing from its treasures, not reflected in its crystal troves.  The psyche of the world radiates from such crystalline deposits around the world. 

However for our current purposes, these subterranean passages offer secret access to the various chambers of Stephanie's hotel. 

A CROUCHING BEAST SLOGS ITS WAY INTO THE ROOM, moves Simon’s bed next as if lifting a feather pillow.  Chris and Simon remain in deep slumber as Cat sits equidistant between their two beds—Scheherazade with her back to the sea.   The great beast sits at Stephanie’s feet.  

With her hands on the chests of sleeping Chris and Simon, she begins to sing softly, at first.  Then, her voice begins to rise, to soar—a powerful contralto soprano.  In response, the beast begins to sway, to stand up, bear like at first, groaning, then chanting in the deep, deep tones of the deepest baritone somehow in counterpoint to Stephanie’s vaulting cadence.  In music, the beast became a creature of human beauty, a figure from a Blake drawing at once intimate and yet reaching to the stars.  As his music continues to build in passion and depth, the back wall of their chamber begins to vibrate, then become porous, then disappear revealing entrance to a crystal lined cave.  The crystals themselves seem to come alive, to become animate, vibrating in response to the wonderful music coming from Stephanie and her golem, her beautiful monster.  The very mountain on whose side the hotel is built seems alive now somehow.  Then, Stephanie starts hitting certain impossible notes and first Simon, then Christopher wake and began to vibrate like heat waves from a summer desert floor.   Music invades ever pore, every cell transforming, purifying, calling, summoning their spirits and then as if on the back of the beast’s low tones and guided by Stephanie’s soaring cadence, the four begin, like the wall to vibrate, fade, and then suddenly, at tornado speed, they disappear into the crystal wall of the cave.  The wall of the room reconstitutes, slams closed and the room settles to its former calm existence but without its former inhabitants.  The sun has long since set and darkness comforts the island.

____________________________

The mechanics of being do not operate in isolation but in relationships to other beings. The complex that is a human being --or any being for that matter-- is capable of sensations that respond to the mechanics of other beings. What we sense does not necessarily engage all there is; only what we are capable of perceiving. So any other being outside of one's self can communicate with us in so far as we are able to receive the communication. The very useful Scientific Method does not have categories for that which is beyond the physical. Metaphysics comes close, but must wait at the razor wire boundary of rational thought for the 'other' world to 'shine through.' Nonetheless, the physical remains the best metaphor for the whole until the machine disappears and the ‘vital energies’ of the spirit reveal themselves as the origin and motivation for being--one might assume. ... Thus, we come to the ever-popular subject of sexuality...

4.2

How Jack Originally found the

‘Achekale’

‘The Pale Castle’

On my way to Turkey, I stood alone outside Le Vadia, a country railway station in Greece, and was impressed with a sense of a kindness and simplicity that is the ambience of all our endeavors. I was on my way to Thessalonica, then Istanbul via Pythia as it will say on my ticket. I’ve just left the Pythian oracle at Delphi where visions and dream were kind to me. The journey continued in kindness across Turkey; kindness in the people I met, the kindness of God who provided the way and at the last moment in the mountains east of Kars, in the kindness of a fellow traveler, a guide who for the moment was obsessed to show me the “Akchekale,” the “White Castle.”  I knew that it was ‘the place’ I was looking for as soon as I saw it. It was a long way from civilization on a promontory above a deep river canyon ... Behind these ancient ruins of a castle,  I sat alone in my ritual before the freshly gathered circle of flowers that sang their pure violet to the sacred fire within their circle. The devil-chasing bell sang itself to silence,

taking my song along with it in that deserted, white castle,

behind its dark tower,

between an abandoned water well and a razed church
 in that place unvisited much,

even by Turks much less tourists,

a wind blew up the river-cut chasm thousands of feet down,


everything fell away,


fell away-


then,



The Word,


whispered across perception

... and it seemed at that moment that I had died, for how could human biology contain such love. It would have been the same for Buddhist, Christian, Moslem, shaman or priest for it was the heart of creation.


There, in that place of an ancient wound, the sacred fire invoked the Spirit,

as some beast roared a wailing cry, a terrible noise that tore through the canyon.



This travel joined my need for healing with the healing that I believe is inherent in creation. 
I could not look back at the castle when I left, for fear, for respect. I seldom think about it now because when I do, my eyes tear fully, reminded of such fullness.

At that moment, though it was smooth and easy in its blessing; pale green, brown rose, yellow--
the light set the land



dancing.

                             

That was Jack’s initial experience of the Achekale.  Over the years, he continued to develop his knowledge of this edifice.  Besides its blatantly holy energies, it has several magical properties.  For one, it can be entered at several locations on the face of the earth.  In the psychic world neither size nor quantity or distance are the barriers as they are in a ‘normal’, temporal environment.  It has also been seen as Agnes’ ‘opalescent cathedral,’ but this is the same psychic structure.

Now from another journal, but a similar theme about the same time:

"Bishop, this opens the whole topic of Shamanism hinted at earlier. You might ask what need a Christian has of such things; spirit animals, sacred plants, rocks and places; rituals and other practices that communicate with the "other-world" through such media. I would like to suggest that God speaks through exactly such agents as these since they are how the creator Spirit has fashioned the world.  This is why religion needs Science.  Science needs religion ...  They are part of the whole complex that connects us intimately to the natural structures of the world. That is their significance to me. Our humanistic religion, our culture has been often indifferent, even hostile to this intimacy and therefore the spiritual dimension of the non-human world. It is a cruel and ignorant vilification to blithely dismiss this profoundly mystical insight of our ancestors about the structure and function of our psyche in relationship with that of the nature, as solely the territory of the black arts where a Christian dare not trespass.  Why would the Creator not use creation and creatures to communicate the mysteries of the world? Such an understanding is neither against revealed religion, nor science for that matter... How we use this knowledge seems to me to be the question that should interest us. And that is what I am describing. The spirit animal that takes on the greatest power in this largely allegorical story is soon to be introduced, though it will be a while before it reveals its real potency and danger. You, I suspect, will be quite surprised, perhaps horrified, as I was at first, by the significance of this animal in my story..." and the contents of the gem-encrusted cave of the Goddess just above the perineum.

_____________________________________

4.3

The creation of a golem or tolpa is an extension of the mystic maker, or creator of these creatures.  They resemble whatever is in the mystic who makes them.  Though often pranksters, they can also carry the highest aspirations of the mystic to the stars.  Ultimately become independent.

The author is not absolutely sure and will not speculate further, since the task here is to describe the essential elements surrounding the death of a knowledgeable, much loved old priest.  Discover who did it.  And catch the son-of-a-bitch!  Mysticism is impossible to understand unless one is a mystic.

Perhaps Cat (Katherine) is a projection of Stephanie.  The only way to tell for sure is to see in whose presence, which disappears.

Stephanie has split an aspect off her own being to make Agnes, a projection, if you like.  But different than a Golem.  The process is similar to what happens in a schizophrenic split to produce multiple personalities.  But this is purposeful.  This projection, part of her person, was sent to California to contact Jack and Jack…  and warn them--maybe… bring them to a meeting in the Pale Castle.  She’s bifucated many times in the past--For years at a time Agnes operated independently. 

But Stephanie’s golem...  There is something wrong with this creature.  Hard to tell, but something happened to it years ago.  It matured enough to hide things from its mistress, its creator, Stephanie.  To lie!  It still serves her.  It’s her beast.  But it can take on different forms.  It can be a handsome man or a beautiful woman.  When it sings, it is like being in the presence of an Angel.  Or it can be the feral, bestial, as it is when Stephanie is around.  It seems almost possessed sometimes. Perhaps possessed by a spirit from the vast blackness of being, its color is so intense, so empty. Possessed by non-form--hungry for form???  A being from the psyche of Dark Matter, maybe?)

Projections are safer than golems. Stephanie’s projection of Agnes; or the magic of it has its roots in the oldest Shamanism.  Its what Lord Voldamort, Harry Potter’s nemesis, has done to be able to come back over and over for seven long volumes in that page turner phenomena by Ms. Rowling.  There are also examples in the Church’s BOOK OF SAINTS—look under ‘bilocation.’  These projections are actually part of their source, their maker.  Their source multiplied.  The golem is made to be independent.   And is completely amoral.

Chris’ employer, Magnum Dei, or rather his order, is engineering the deaths of independent magical contractors all over the world.  Why?  Can Chris be converted and become friends with Stephanie, Steve, Jack and Simon!?  Much less Benedict and Mary?  We’ll see.  His presence seems divided. Mysterious, like the intentions of his order.   Magnum Dei, is a Roman Catholic order founded in Europe in the 1930’s.  Its dead founder was pushed through the process of canonization by right wing elements in the Church.  He’s no saint--unless sanctity operated in him in spite of his abusive personality.  Its mission is arch-orthodoxy, supported by unhealthy, repressive, even brutal training for its novices.  Their practices are very secretive, as is Chris.  They tend to recruit and cater to the wealthy.  But people like Stephanie and Simon have other means at their disposal, to change someone’s mind about things.

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4.4

Travel to the Achekale, the Pale Castle…

Perhaps the author didn’t know how they actually got there and invented the Crystal Highway!  But here’s how she described it:

Stephanie, Chris and Simon arrive metaphorically on the back of the Golem.  One really wonders if this part of our story isn’t part of a group dream or some other exaggeration of paranormal phenomena.  Without direct experience, these events, and issues of higher magnitude entirely,  are hard to accept as really real!  None-the-less, from all appearances, this is what happened.

As our travelers arrive from the Caribbean, the pocket of crystals they identified as closest to their destination, i.e. the Achekale portal  in the High Sierras of California is not a cavern with access to the surface of the earth.  It’s just a buried cache of crystals.  So, as they emege from the crystals, they reconstitute from a mere collection of psychic emanations, to organic flesh and blood.  It requires the perfect timing typical of good music.  However well timed and perfect in technique, the distance from the surface of the cache of crystals to the surface of the earth required some digging by the Beast.  He has borne the brunt of these travels and often emerges bloodied and beaten by the passage.

On this occasion, these pilgrims burst forth in the middle of a compound a few kilometers from the actual location of the Pale Castle!  This compound is an adjacent neighbor to the retreat where Jack met Fr. Steve, but any buildings are several miles apart.   This place was guarded by enormous bear-like dogs typical in regions of the Middle East from Turkey to Tibet.  They wore iron collars of interwoven sharp spikes and jumped from freight and aggression when our friends emerged.

Stephanie followed by Chris and Simon burst forth from earth, soiled though not bloodied.  Almost immediately they were attacked by the pack of the giant guard dogs.  They fended off the dogs briefly with threats and thrown rocks. When they reach the compound gate,  they find it locked.  Stephanie turned, told her three companions to cover their ears and bellowed a series of notes of such frequency that it brought all to their knees,  ears covered and completely stunned the attacking animals.  She then turned and whispered to the huge lock on the gate.  It fell open.  The company strode through, out into the countryside,  closing the gate behind them with Stephanie complaining to the exhausted golem about her soiled clothing…

 ____________________________

2006 LETTER TO A BISHOP Part III, Chapter Four, TRIP TO JERUSALEM: "I suppose a significance of my experience in Jerusalem was that the sensibilities developed there are particular to the place--the 'genius loci' of that place.  Which might be why so much of Christianity always seems alien to other places.  Though one must still consider such passages as the "Sermon on the Mount" as more universal, but still consistent with the spirits--elohim, natural psyche, or 'genius' of that locale, grandiosely magnified in the re-telling..."

4.5

Agnes had displayed remarkable martial skills in defeating the people who were trying to kill Jack and Steve.  She had greets Jack and Steve, still vulnerable from their recent confrontation and confused by the attack.  She, Steve and Jack are of course already acquainted.  And she and Jack remember one another from high school especially.  But don’t really know one another.   Being tired herself from her recent exertions,  rather than try to convince them to join her, whom they might not find quite trustworthy, she, with the full power of the sorceress Stephanie, had cast a glamour over them.  Then, she lead them to the local entrance of the Pale Castle, explaining as they walk along compliantly.  She didn’t force them.  She just removed resistance and mistrust in them for the time being.

This writer doesn’t understand it well enough to describe the Pale Castle other than to say that those who have seen it say it resembles a grey, but opalescent cathedral in the clouds.  Or, a pale shimmering white stone castle in the woods, or wherever it’s seen. 

There is a price for its use since apparently it exists as an aid to the oracular functions of the world,  but one can use it for travel by entering and exiting the correct portals.  One can be lost forever in its labyrinthine passages.  Agnes took a chance in depending upon her very strong intuitive capacities.  I don’t understand it, so why should I lie.  They arrived safe and sound!  What more can I say?

She, Jack and Steve  find the open space of the Pale Castle—what would be the nave or main aisle down the middle of he building itself.  This is an ancient model so there are no pews.  Rather, its like being outside in the forest!

Stephanie was somewhat disgruntled that her own projection, Agnes, should have an easier time of getting there than her regal self.  But she didn’t know about the fight just preceding, or Agnes’ triumph.  Seems like she would know.  But she does not know everything her projection does or thinks.  And it is important to note that these two, Stephanie and Agnes, who look like identical twins, are never in the same place for long.  Agnes disappears when they meet!  As indeed she does on this occasion.

Now there is one woman and four men.  Like some Tibetan families, and a Tolpa, i.e., a Golem!  Stephanie obviously is in control.  A wonderous being.   Whole now.  She had been a bit confused and divided sometimes when she projects parts of herself.  She has a strangely intimate attraction to Jack  and vice versa.  Jack  and Chris are Churchmen.  Jack, also of the Church, but is an independent scholar and practitioner—though an ordained priest.  Simon is a young, independent magical contractor.

_________________________

GENIUS LOCI,

or more, a WORLD SOUL, a localization of GRACE. The concept that there is a world soul or psyche is communicable within the human psyche.  We ignore it to our peril.  The realm of the psyche, also of Chi, is the Unified Field.  That unifying matrix is the topic of religion through the ages.  Though, either in religion or science, that field of vision is limited by its own semantic.

           

NOTE:  The Church is very clear about this.  In her teaching about this topic of an animate universe, or a world soul, from the early centuries of her life, she very carefully refuses to deny it.

The Artist/Writer/Editor does not need claim to ‘work wonders’ or to converse with Dark Spirits, etc.  Here, he needs simply comment upon his experience of what human perception is capable—what it has been and what it might yet be.

5.0

This is a meeting to avoid war between the Church and Magi.  Simon and Jack must go to the underworld to challenge the archetypes of creation, the Gods-  For the salvation of the world.  But also to find out who killed Fr. Robillard.   The murder of Fr. Robillard could be considered a declaration of war between these two forces in the world.

Chris’ function in all this is mysterious.  (Is he, like ag and cat, projection of a powerful mystic?  Who? If indeed he is.  Nah….) In any case, he apparently gives up his murderous intentions and agrees to help Stephanie to quell the war between religion and magic, two important chapters in the Book of Mysticism--and placate his very aggressive Catholic order.   It will be revealed that he might be Mother Mary’s agent?  --Her projection to guage both Simon and Stephanie and the activities of Magnum Dei.  But this is yet to be seen and how…)

Mother Mary and Benedict arrive at the Pale Castle, the opal cathedral,  along with a fully hooded Sr. Hermit who guides them.  So now there are three women,  five men and the Golem.

The Golem must be destroyed, cries Sr. Hermit.  Mary insists the same and hands Jack his long hunting knife. He takes it in his right hand and lunges towards the exhausted golem who rears up with a bear like roar. 

“Betrayal, Flee, Flee…” The Golem cries to Stephanie!

Stephanie screams and attempts to rescue her creature.  But she is silenced by a glance from Mary and held by Jack and Chris.  

Brother Benedict quickly, but carefully withdraws a blade from beneath his cloak.  It is the same knife that Jack had hidden at the beginning of our story.  Benedict had sought it out, spent hours looking for it, hunting through the brush west of the Mary’s retreat house.  Running close to the ground in a remarkable way like a hound sniffing for magic.  Finding the ‘scent’ of Jack’s trail and the pulsing power of this blade hidden in its shallow grave beneath the sage.

The sacred blade in Jack’s hand tears, sears from crown to waist so that the creature is sliced in two before it can summon its own considerable power and strength.

Stephanie groans as the psychic stain nearly tears her asunder.  She collapses as the creature returns to the soil from which it was made—its animating energies liberated after years of servitude—free finally to dissipate in the clean, mountain air.  But something else, a cloud of black smoke flees into the endless corridors the opalesant Cathedral.

“Silence, child”, as Mary reaches to comfort Stephanie.  She takes the witch in her arms and cradles her in her lap as they both settle to the earth.

“I’m sorry.  I know it hurts.  But trust me.  I will tell you things that you will find hard to believe.  But once you know, you will understand why we had to do what we did.  Why your golem had to be destroyed.  You can check it all when we return to Los Angeles.  Then if you still don’t believe it was necessary,  I will compensate you 1000 fold for your loss.

“How could you compensate… “ And Stephanie begins to weep. With this, Mary begins to whisper in her ear.  After maybe 10 minutes, maybe more.  Stephanie sits up, dries her tears and says,

“Alright.  I’ll hold you to your word.  If I find out that what you say is true, then we’re even.  If not, there will be HELL TO PAY!

 “It’s a deal,” murmured Mary.

____________________________

5.1

An event of importance has taken place about which the mysteries are so Byzantine only the angels could follow-- with a score card.  But its necessary to announce that after Sister Celestine returned from Rome, she engineered a campaign in her Order to have Sister Mary elected Mother Superior.  Having held many offices in the Order for many years and teaching, as well as advancing her own spiritual practices by the Grace of the Spirit,  Mother Mary knows how to delegate.  For now, her entire focus is aimed at the activities of the company gathered in the Achekale and solving the murder of Father Robillard.  Celestine is, in effect, in charge of the business and administration of the Order—a task for which she is completely competent.  Honesty, competence and first-rate hygiene!  In situations like this, the Mother Superior of the Order, is not the chief administrator so much as spiritual leader, a ‘Staretz’ as in Russian Orthodoxy; a spiritually gifted and charismatic person more inclined to inspire and direct, than manage programs and funding.  Mary is already recognized as such a person.  This election merely gives form to spirit already in action.  In other words, she is free to pursue her own projects and no one will question if they are merely self-indulgence or the inspired action of the Holy Spirit.

 _________________________

6.0

Many pages have been rendered illegible here.  But there seems still story that can be followed:

Stephanie, Chris, Steve, Jack  and …

…However, this gathering is not a typical sorcerer’s contest or shamanic battle.  Why this place is chosen?  The spirit of the place…  especially for Jack.

Sister Hermit, Steve, Agnes and Jack in California meet Stephanie, Chris and Simon in the Pale Castle above Bishop, California.

Jack had discovered the Pale Castle,  the Achekale, which is why Stephanie chose it as their meeting place, because Jack would feel secure there.

_________________________

 6.1

Former confusions disappear as Agnes return home to Stephanie’s psyche. 

Stephanie denies any part in the murder of the Seminary Professor… Explains and justifies her life. 

With the old priest’s death, a line is crossed -- mutual informal, non interference pact, a peace, that has existed for centuries since the witch burnings of Europe followed by priest killings in all the revolutions that accompanied the so called Reformation and Enlightenment, is breached with the murder of this kindly scholar/priest. 

Was he killed because he found out something that if he revealed,  it would cause the deaths of both criminals and innocents.  He kept it to himself, but apparently was about to reveal it.  Chris is convinced, converted, promises to keep his order Magnum Dei a bay—at least he says that he is and will... 

Jack is chosen to inform the ‘powers that be’ in his circle, i.e.,  the hierarchy of the Church, the Cardinals.   Sister Hermit will become emissary to the contemplatives of the world that their lives of prayer will be joined to this mission. 

Mother Mary will contact Jorge and other shamans of her acquaintance that word might be spread among the most powerful of these…

In this meeting,  a spiritual war is to be avoided between Church and Magical community…  But more importantly,  a method is decided upon to address this complex set of problems that reaches into the highest levels of power, wealth and governance.

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130

Ghats Along Holy Ganga



Acrylic on Canvas 20" X 20" 2004

Jack and Simon are chosen and accept the choice that they be sacrificed in the old way,  that they may descend to the underworld to do battle with the archetypes of the world, the chthonic deities who determine what is possible on the surface of the planet. 

Jack’ knife was be used and it was Stephanie who was chosen as powerful enough to perform the ritual successfully.  Though, she had volunteered …

Theory of Archetypes.  Angels, Gods, Devas, the Fey people—Shee, Siddhas…

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6.2

XIBALBA

The Psyche and Nature

The five sat in a small circle around the fire.  Their faces in shadow. The wilderness was silent. There were no night sounds. No wind. The fire seemed to burn in silence.  Cloaks, Jackets and coats pulled tightly around each silent participant. The night was cold.

The Pale Castle shimmered nearly invisible around them.

A Fire of Liberating Colors crackles as Jack and Simon prepare for travel to Xibalba.

Xibalba is the legendary underworld into which the Warrior Twins of much Native American lore descend to play the game of life and death with the Gods of Death in the cycle of life and death and rebirth. 

Kali’s Wheel if you like.  Or Shiva’s… 

One can easily find the account of the Warrior Twins in the Polpo Vue.  

134.  Sacred Precinct, Dual Epiphany



Acrylic on Canvas 20" X 16" 2004

But Simon and Jack must seek in their own underworld for salvation for their own world.

The sacrificial ritual is performed to the terrible beauty of Stephanie’s extraordinary voice.  The sacred blade was raised-- Jack and Simon’s hearts were torn free from their housing.  It seems...

Not just any path or chapter.  Not just any alcove or salon.  No palliatives here.  No placebos.  Only the strongest poisons will do. Have to be able to drink the ‘strong’ drink.  The Sacred Drink.  Soma.  Sagrada Datura.  Only for the most dire need,   will they descend into the crystalline caves of the unconscious with its lacelike folds of meaning. 

Through the cave to a darkened environment of colorless smoke-- A murky darkness.   It is the smoke of a black, black dragon.  Deepest earth spirit.   Turgid, hot,  oppressive beyond belief—chthonic deity. 

After what seemed like an eternity, from the obscure atmosphere emerges an embankment, deeply etched cliffs.  Spread across this escarpment of gaping fissures was a web. As we drew closer, we saw it to be a Black Widow's web—a real snarl.  She was waiting just visible at the mouth of one of the caves.  Just her huge, powerful front legs were visible.  Some agitation in the atmosphere teased her web. She quickly retreated,  a bullet into darkness.  We waited. She came back so slowly so that no potential prey would ever notice her movement, so slowly as to send chills through my body. I wanted nothing but to leave her alone.

Jack felt a particular aversion to spiders,  especially Black Widows. Simon was indifferent but to the moment of danger.  There was nowhere else to go.  They tried to slip past her into the caves to the right,  below her web. She was on Jack like lightening.  ‘I didn't have time to be terrified.’  She didn’t seem interested in Simon.  Only went for Jack:

44.  Dark Lady

“But she could not hurt me because I had become clothed in an armor of shining,  silver light, the surface of which her fangs could not pierce.  Then she stood back and taught me.   It was like inserting the sharpest point, an acupuncture needle.  But instead of sucking, she inserted something in me.  Teaching.  It cleaned me out.  Emptied me.  Left me an empty form. Yet animate.”

Simon’s experience was different:

“I escaped as Jack was delayed by that big spider, I found a place to wait and hope.  Suddenly, all of my spirit animals gathered.  My parent animals as well are there. All are gathered in the "land", the interior landscape, to observe something. We waited and watched for several days it seems. Then, "It" appears. It was awful. A terrible thing.  A vast thing. Something out of a primordial place, black with fecund decay; it emerges. It wakes. Vast.  My pantheon seems paltry in comparison.

But then, after several days of dismay, I tell myself that Grandmother Spider is the feminine aspect of God, and the Great Old Man is One with the Christ. But still, this new beast is horrible. It is like a great black snake or eel. I waited for several days as it continues to rise. I have to go into it. Awful. I do. I must enter into it, must identify with it. Sex, death, life.  I fit into a moist slit in its body. We begin to travel. Travel at a speed unimaginable even in these days of imaginable light speed. Then we arrive somewhere. I won't describe that. What I am sure about is the rising and the travel of the beast, it is "neg.-entropy". … The black 'worm' is a beast of vast power, raised to effect what is necessary for a broader vision of God's intention in creation than what urbanized, humanistic and religious motives usually allow.  Finally, the black snake entered my central nervous system, macrocosm into microcosm. It stayed there for several days, stretched through my spinal column, tail to crown. In fact, psychically, it is that bone and nerve structure even now and will become one with a white and gold dragon that is the skeletal, nerve structure of the world.

…through the dark smoke to a crystalline blackness, to see the gold etched forms of being, like the blue-print plans for a house, and so much more.  But the search requires knowledge, courage, truth, never deception-  faith in the Gift.  These are the forms that underlie and cause and permit life on earth.  Its here on a gold etched throne… gold in the blackest empty space, galactic vast, in the sacred circle- resolution.   Here is where Simon and Jack must search, must fight, must die—in order to live! 

And then they are on a flood plain of ochre mud, early morning light.  They are naked, but clothed in mud, from matted heads of hair to bare feet.  Nagaesque, they learn to sing the wind.  To fly.  To become invisible.  Here they cease to exist as before.  Now they are elements of nature.  No longer will they know their friends or family.  No one will know them.  Only because the secret pattern of their task has been imprinted in them ahead of time will they be able to help the others, for not only have they forgotten the others, they do not remember themselves.  They are close to Union with God, but still just enough in this world to be of help to the ones who educated them,  prepared them for exactly this moment,  this moment of ultimate sacrifice.

Back at the Achekale,  the Pale Castle, a ‘real’ place in the ‘real’ world,  Jack’s and Simon’s lifeless bodies lie beneath earth colored blankets.  Stephanie,  Jack and Chris have fled in terror having been granted a shared vision like a projected hologram of what happened to Simon and Jack.  The others fled as well lest they be sucked into the vision.

They made their way back to the crystal trove in the dirt colored compound.  Left the tones of their travel resounding through the hills in that part of the Eastern Sierras, eventually arrive home into the cavern behind the now bolted wall of what was once the back of Jack’ studio.

Steve’s Father Saved?  Returns Jack and Simon to their bodies…?

Meeting concludes--  Results?

Old Mary wants a private meeting with Joe.

6.3

Mother Mary and Brother Benedict attend a secret meeting with Joe Moreno and his “Spiritual Advisor,” Jorge, the Santero.  They met in a Mexican restaurant in a back room.  There were no other customers.  Joe Moreno’s henchmen were in the front rooms of the building and in the parking lot behind.  Mother Mary and Brother Benedict had no entourage other than each other, the Holy Spirit and several legions of Angels.  They felt confident.  She walks into the restaurant, nodding primly to the gangsters in front.  They return her gesture by making he sign of the Cross on themselves.

… Mother, who said that I had that old priest killed?  Never! Never did I give such an order! I want it clear.  I had nothing to do with his death! 

Joe, I was told that you were possibly responsible because of a string of gang related killings around that time.  But that was several months ago.  Other issues have been raised since.    I know how Father Robillard died.    We must not leave tonight without an agreement about this.  In fact,  Joe I want to speak with you and Jorge privately.  Benedict is willing to step out if it will progress our meeting.  Would you ask Jaime to step out for just a moment?

Mr. Moreno, I don’t think that’s a good idea.  I don’t think I should leave you alone in this place.  I don’t like it.  I didn’t choose this place… I...  (Jaime is very uncomfortable with this development.)

Nah, it’s fine.  I’m not afraid of Mother Mary!  Unless, she brought her ruler… Ha, Ha, Ha, Haaa…

Benedict escorted Jaime out.  After a moment of silence, Mother Mary spoke: 

I know now what happened to Fr. Robillard, who is said to have sliced his wrists and why.  But you must keep this a secret a while longer.  So, that my suspicions can have time to prove themselves!  Believe me, you are going to want to act!

Stephanie was never confined to the Caribbean as we thought Agnes was.  The Ghosts of the Caribs played tricks on us.  They were in collusion with Stephanie.  And she traveled where she liked.  She came to the California years ago, created Agnes and saw that she was lodged with us.  Other than that, she’s fairly innocent.  It’s the Golem, what the Tibetans call a Tolpa.  Kodiac.  They are by their natures mischievous as any adolescent, but this one unknown to its mistress has made a contract with a dark spirit so subtle that neither we or Stephanie can detect its presence.  Jorge, cast your oracle, look into my heart.  You will know that I am telling you the truth. 

Jorge goes into a light trance, casts his oracle and nods in the affirmative.

So, brothers—sinners YES, but none-the-less brothers still to me—Here’s what happened.   A Spirit of Deepest, Furthest,  Darkest Space had inhabited Kodiac.  When Stephanie is not around,  Kodiac has made friends over the years and …

AT THIS MOMENT, JAIME RUSHES IN WITH TWO HELPERS.  HOLDS GUNS ON EVERYONE.  HE GRABS MARY AND PUSHES HER OUT THROUGH THE KITCHEN, SHOOTING JOE’S GUARDS AS HE GOES. 

Benedict is waiting out back by their car talking to one of the underling gangsters.  On seeing Jaime with gun in one hand and Mary in the other he rushes forward. Also outside the back of the restaurant, one of the gangster’s black Escalades is idling behind the restaurant.  Jaime shoots the underling while he pushes Benedict off balance as he rushes Mary past—thinking perhaps that he will be able to tangle the monk in the long robes of God’s love that he wears everywhere.  Brother regains his huge balance almost immediately, bounding after the escaping gangster.  Just as he catches up with the kidnapper and his victim, Jaime turns,  gun in hand.  He shoots wildly,  but hits Benedict in the knee.  The monk is reduced to a groaning heap on the pavement.  Jaime pushes Old Sister into the open SUV and the driver guns it onto the street and into the passing traffic.

*Joe and Jorge and the others rush out of the restaurant

*Benedict shouts at them in pain and contempt--  They deny anything to do with this violence.

*Sister is in the car with Jaime and his helpers…  She knows what they’ve done and why! 

*The other gangsters and Ben give chase.

*Jaime tells Mary that he is not going to hurt her,  he’s going to kill her.  Just like he did the old priest.

*The chase goes on for 20 minutes as Mary and Jaime talk. 

* Mother shows Jaime and his helpers!  A strange sharp light glows from the windows of the car,  just briefly.

*Their car crashes into an alley wall.  The gangsters run screaming out of the wrecked car into the volley of bullets just shot from the illegal assault weapons of Joe and his crew!

…Benedict shouts to stop shooting,  not to shoot the car with Mother Mary in it.  As he shouts, he limps foolishly, heroically in front of the shooters.  There is the slightest remnant of a strange glow still radiating from inside the car as Mother Mary steps quietly out …

_____________________________

7.0

Days later, Mary,  recovered,  tells the whole tale to the gathered group.  In this she reveals the following:

Jaime, and the Golem—in the guise of a handsome well dressed man who had met Jaime years ago, (See end of Chapter Six) had been both encouraging molestation and the molestation complaints against priests because of money to be made from all the people involved—law firms, victims organizations—he had made the leaders offers they could not refuse with the supernatural help of the golem,  Kodiac.

This is in addition to the money made from labor and construction contracts by Joe and his crowd.

The Cardinal had tried to intervene, but...  There are victims for sure, but of whom?

Father Robillard had known that Jaime was playing both sides of the fence.   

--Father Robillard’s death not suicide or murder. 

--Died of natural causes.

--The slices on his arms were a code gang signs.  A warning to any that Jaime was not to be crossed.  Though,  he was still working for Moreno, he had developed quite a lot of his own business on the side.  Jaime had intended to kill Fr. Robillard to silence what he knew, but the dear,  always obliging,  died of old age before Jaime arrived.

The Golem is not really Stephanie’s servant when out of her sphere of influence—also a double agent.  (Guided now by the deep space spirit,  he has mastered my guises, including a handsome and well dressed business man.)  Influences and is partner to Moreno’s Second, Jaime  a willing partner in corruption

Golem was inhabited by a Spirit of Dark Matter.  Need to find out what that’s all about…  A new influence in the world?  The dark force/smoke that escaped as the golem was ‘killed’ upon Old Mary’s orders.  (Scientific Enlightenment develop from Church’s controversy’s surrounding such medieval figures as Magisters Aycardus and Thomas Aquino, etc. ...)

Mother Mary and Brother Benedict are partners now.  They resolve to continue to work together to solve crime in these kinds of cases.

The Archbishop retreats to a monastery of undisclosed location.   He had tried to dissuade Joe and Jaime but never knew the full force of what he was up against.  He retired exhausted and confused.

What about Simon and Jack?  Are they dead, sacrificed by Stephanie?  Or are they more alive than ever...

Fr.  Steve’s father-  An essential player in our theater.  He withdrew, but where and to what effect?

TO BE CONTINUED...

________________________________________

7.1


*And Sister has a closet with a trapdoor leading down to the sacred caverns…  is she a thaumaturge as well as holy nun?  A wonder worker?  She teaches Benedict to resonate, to ‘sound’ on such a profound depth that he can travel with her, to vibrate on such a frequency so as to lose corporeal form while maintaining psychic integrity, they sing their way through the psychic channels of the earth and through various crystal outlets such as that below her house!

SCENE SHIFTS TO THIS CRYSTAL CAVE BENEATH MOTHER MARY’S RETREAT!

____________________________

7.2

Mother Mary sits on her humble throne in the crystal cavern beneath her house.  She wears the emerald regalia of her office.  Her simple Robe of Office—elaborately worked gems.  Stephanie and Celestine stand behind her.  Jorge is at her side.  Bro. Benedict as well.  Stephanie represends the magical world?  Celest and Ben. The Church.  Jack,  Chris,  Simon the political, economic and scientific realms.? A mystic’s spectrum.

All her students around her--  Even the hard nosed detectives--In the limitless reaches of her crystal lined cave;

Mother Mary Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Goddess of the Earth. Mother of the Savior, brought with child by THE Spirit, Ka of Osirus--Guide of Pilgrims—Ganesha! Shiva! Horus…

Together they pray, chant,  sing the glory of the Dao.  The one God.  One in three.  One in 300 million.  So simple-- so infinitely complex.  A mystery of Love beyond telling… only God understands.

_____________________

7.3

149.

SPIRIT OF DARK MATTER 4: SEEKER RETURNS TO THE ORACLE

(This painting references the final three years of my initiation as a mystic—with Georgia. (See Nepsis Foundation Table of Contents, Section III: "Resolution") 'Seeker..." also references our many trips to Egypt, the Spinx, Luxor and Karnak, etc., and on our final journey, the Oracle of Siwa. Implied here is a conjuring of dark spirits. Not evil, per se. Rather, here we engage the Spirit of Dark Matter. An important influence in my studies has been the 'Genius Loci,' the Spirit of Place(s), and through that the engorged idea of a World Spirit or Soul. Here is something more than a rational extrapolation that posits ‘if places and objects are animated by some kind of spiritual presence or incarnation, then Dark Matter also might share such vitality.’ Here is recounted an encounter with such or other entities from a vast universe as they might be perceived through the vales of human perception...)

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But who is this new arrival?  A witch? Wise woman, thaumature—Georgia. Surrounded by the Glory of Changing Woman  and under the protection of Grandmother Spider!! And what does her arrival portend.  Will she be the one to find our lost brothers Jack and Simon… and Steve’s father?  Who can tell… 

A TERRIBLE WRENCHING CRASH IS HEARD. THE CAVE BEGINS TO COLLASPE.  AN EARTHQUAKE ON THE SAN ANDRES FAULT!!!  THE CRYSTALS SHIMMER AND SING.  THE VISION DISAPPATES.  MOTHER MARY IS SHAKEN AWAKE FROM AN EVENING NAP ON THE COUCH OF HER LITTLE RETREAT HOUSE.  THE SNAP OF CONTINENTS GRINDING ALONG ONE ANOTHER, THROWS HER UP IN THE AIR AND CRASHING DOWN ON THE FRAGIL GLASS COFFEE TABLE IN FRONT OF THE COUCH.   

ANOTHER SHOCK AND THEN, AFTER SEVERAL, ETERNALLY LONG MINUTES, the desert settles once again to its quiet night rhythms as Mary reaches to turn on the TV to see what damage has been done and what she might do to help… In reaching, she screams in pain as her ancient body and brittle bones are left writhing in the broken glass on the floor.  She’s broken her hip!? God knows what.

After a few moments the pain subsides, and she lays still, thinking that someone will find her soon enough—(in fact there was a neighbor hurrying towards her house even then)—if she lay still maybe the pain wouldn’t be so bad.  But from long conditionion, in her mind was also a cry:  “BUT WHAT ABOUT ALL THE PEOPLE, GOT TO HELP…” 

And with that, Mother Mary closed her eyes…  as a candle flame from beneath the house ignites broken wood and tortured books mangled beneath the wreckage.

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ENDNOTE

It’s my wife and I who found those half-burnt journals and letters among the effects of Mother Mary- my great, great aunt.  One of the letters, not published above, that we found among her journals, refer to other journals left in the possession of a Navajo woman in Window Rock, St. Michael on the Navajo Reservation.  I have not been able to find this person.  If these further journals of this really great nun, Mother Mary, are ever found, perhaps we can make sense of the bits and pieces of this story we’ve found so far.

Our lives have been threatened in reference to this publication.  My car was torched. There is something contained in the information provided that apparently is problematic for some.  So we are in hiding. …in some mountains safe in the trees and snow.   I have not given our names on purpose. And we’ve changed the names of all the people in this story.

Just reading these papers have changed our lives.  I can’t describe to you the desolation I feel.  Nor the exultation!  I have no word for what I must do. 

I know I cannot live as we did before.

148.

SPIRIT OF DARK MATTER 3

Acrylic on Canvas 20" x 20" 2003