Area : I_UFO

Date : Sun Jul 07, 03:19                                                       
From : Blue Resonant Human                                   1:330/201.1
To   : All                                 
Subj : Whitley and the Abyss (1/3)                                           
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Reply-to: iufo@alterzone.com
From: "Blue Resonant Human" 
Originally to: iufo@alterzone.com
Sender: iufo-approval@alterzone.com
Original Date: Sat, 06 Jul 1996 22:58:16 GMT


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Whitley and the Abyss
=====================

"SOMA is the moon astronomically; but in mystical phraseology, it
 is also the name of the sacred beverage drunk by the Brahmins and
 the Initiates during their mysteries and sacrificial rites.  The
 'soma' plant is the asclepias acida, which yields a juice from
 which that mystic beverage, the Soma drink, is made.  Alone the
 descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotri (the fire priests) of
 the great mysteries knew all it's powers.  But the real property 
 of the *true* Soma ['The Elixir of Life'] was (and is) to make a 
 new man of the initiate, after he is reborn...

"The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external
 body, and yetv away from it in his spiritual form.  The latter,
 freed from the former, soars for the time being in the ethereal 
 higher regions, becoming virtually 'as one of the gods,' and yet
 plainly preserving in his physical brain the memory of what he
 sees and learns.  Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree
 of Knowledge forbidden by the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or
 Yah-Ve, 'lest man should become as one of us.'"

-H.P. Blavatsky
 The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II: Anthropogenesis (p. 499)
 Theosophical University Press


Having recently passed by a Thelemic archive or twain on one of my 
observational strolls, I was quite taken by numerous references to
an apparently transcendental and transformitive experience which 
appears to be called "The Crossing of the Abyss."

Although I am in no wise qualified to comment knowledgably on the
process, nevertheless I have captured a brief, albeit disjointed,
snapshot, funneled it through my own perceptions (as do we all)
and presented it here.  Not as a studied art or science but merely 
as the briefest and shallowest of descriptions for your consider-
ation.

It is no big secret that the subject of "aliens" holds a great
degree of interest for me and I have been quite intrigued on many
occasions to note certain crossover points where the very diverse
socio-cultural ideologies and ontologies of our species appear to 
overlap somewhat.
   
And indeed, what has remained veiled for millenia.

In regards to the strange process noted above, it was not long after
reading certain Thelemic remarks on this subject that I recalled a
portion of Strieber's book "Majestic" from a few years back which 
appears remarkably similar in many respects.

Hence the title, Whitley and the Abyss.

It has been often rumored that Mr. Strieber has enjoyed certain
Wiccan affiliations in the past so bearing this in mind, one wonders
if these formerly inculcated belief systems may have filtered their 
way into the tapestry of his current "space alien" mythology or if
certain occult groups have long been privy to a view of what A.F. 
Col. Donald Ware (ret.) has succinctly termed the "larger reality."

This series is in three parts.  Part one here contains a snippet 
from the alt.magick FAQ entitled "A Glimpse of the Structure and 
System of the Great White Brotherhood" which pertains to the process
noted above.

Part two is a portion of a [metaphorical/allegorical?] dramatic 
story which appeared in Crowley's Equinox -- the "official organ
of the A.'. A.'. -- in which a young woman at the turn of the 
century is guided on the abysmal journey by a fellow initiate 
(with apparently hidden agendas) and provides an interesting yet 
deeply veiled account for those adept at reading between the lines.
 
Part three is the excerpt from Strieber's novel in which a young
intelligence officer (also a member of a secret "occultic [intell]
society" which maintains it's own "initiation ceremonies," has it's 
own hierarchial "need to know" classifications and structures and
enforces it's own version of "sacred oaths") has an encounter with 
some "aliens" and is transported via some strange elixir to his own 
disturbing yet ostensibly enlightening "crossing of the abyss."

See if you note any similarities between the core substances of
each expression.

Then see if you can determine why this might be.

================================================================

Part I

  "The Order of the S. S." (Silver Star, Argon Astron, A.'. A.'.)
  is composed of those who have crossed the Abyss; the implications 
  of this expression may be studied in Liber 418, the 14th, 13th, 
  12th, 11th, 10th, and 9th Aethyrs in particular.  All members of 
  the Order are in full possession of the Formulae of Attainment, 
  both mystical or inwardly-directed and Magical or outwardly-
  directed.  
   
  [...]

  Every active Member of the Order has destroyed all that He is 
  and all that he has on crossing the Abyss; but a star is cast 
  forth in the Heavens to enlighten the Earth, so that he may 
  possess a vehicle wherein he may communicate with mankind.  
  The quality and position of this star, and its functions, are 
  determined by the nature of the incarnations transcended by him.

  To attain the grade of Magus he must accomplish Three Tasks;
  the renunciation of His enjoyment of the Infinite so that he 
  may formulate Himself as the Finite; the acquisition of the 
  practical secrets alike of initiating and governing His proposed 
  new Universe and the identification of himself with the impersonal 
  idea of Love.  Any neophyte of the Order (or, as some say, any 
  person soever) possesses the right to claim the Grade of Master 
  of the Temple by taking the Oath of the Grade.  It is hardly 
  necessary to observe that to do so is the most sublime and awful 
  responsibility which it is possible to assume, and an unworthy
  person who does so incurs the most terrific penalties by his 
  presumption.
   
  [...]

  "The Order of the R. C."  The Grade of the Babe of the Abyss
  is not a Grade in the proper sense, being rather a passage 
  between the two Orders.  Its characteristics are wholly negative,
  as it is attained by the resolve of the Adeptus Exemptus to 
  surrender all that he has and is for ever.  It is an annihilation 
  of all the bonds that compose the self or constitute the Cosmos, 
  a resolution of all complexities into their elements, and these 
  thereby cease to manifest, since things are only knowable in 
  respect of their relation to, and reaction on, other things.
   
  [...]
   
  To attain the Grade of Magister Templi, he must perform two tasks;
  the emancipation from thought by putting each idea against its 
  opposite, and refusing to prefer either; and the consecration of 
  himself as a pure vehicle for the influence of the order to which 
  he aspires.

  He must then decide upon the critical adventure of our Order; the
  absolute abandonmnt of himself and his attainments.  He cannot 
  remain indefinitely an Exempt Adept; he is pushed onward by the 
  irresistible momentum that he has generated.

  Should he fail, by will or weakness, to make his self-
  annihilation absolute, he is none the less thrust forth into the 
  Abyss; but instead of being received and reconstructed in the 
  Third Order, as a Babe in the womb of our Lady BABALON, under 
  the Night of Pan, to grow up to be Himself wholly and truly as 
  He was not previously, he remains in the Abyss, secreting his 
  elements round his Ego as if isolated from the Universe, and 
  becomes what is called a "Black Brother."  Such a being is 
  gradually disintegrated from lack of nourishment and the slow
  but certain action of the attraction of the rest of the Universe,
  despite efforts to insulate and protect himself, and to 
  aggrandise himself by predatory practices.  He may indeed prosper 
  for a while, but in the end he must perish, especially when with 
  a new Aeon a new word is proclaimed which he cannot and will not 
  hear, so that he is handicapped by trying to use an obsolete 
  method of Magick, like a man with a boomerang in a battle where 
  every one else has a rifle.

  [...]
   
  ...he must employ to this end the formula called "The 
  Beast conjoined with the Woman" which establishes a new 
  incarnation of deity; as in the legends of Leda, Semele, Miriam, 
  Pasiphae, and others.  

  [...]

  From the Abyss comes No Man forth, but a Star startles the 
  Earth, and our Order rejoices above that Abyss that the Beast 
  hath begotten one more Babe in the Womb of Our Lady, His 
  concubine, the Scarlet Woman, BABALON.
   
  There is not need to instruct a Babe thus born, for in the Abyss
  it was purified of every poison of personality; its ascent to the 
  highest is assured, in its season, and it hath no need of seasons 
  for it is conscious that all conditions are no more than forms of 
  its fancy.

================================================================

Excerpts from Alt.Magick FAQ #7: "A Glimpse of the Structure and 
System of the Great White Brotherhood."

This document is Copyright (c) 1994, authors cited.

All rights reserved.  Permission to distribute the collection is
hereby granted providing that distribution is electronic, no money
is involved, reasonable attempts are made to use the latest version
and all credits and this copyright notice are maintained.



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Area : I_UFO

Date : Sun Jul 07, 03:20                                                       
From : Blue Resonant Human                                   1:330/201.1
To   : All                                 
Subj : Whitley and the Abyss (2/3)                                           
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ

Reply-to: iufo@alterzone.com
From: "Blue Resonant Human" 
Originally to: iufo@alterzone.com
Sender: iufo-approval@alterzone.com
Original Date: Sat, 06 Jul 1996 23:00:24 GMT


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Part II

::: THE GREY HOUR :::

"TO resume," observed Rolles as he removed the tea-tray, "since 
you have done no prescribed practices (wicked little sister!) 
you cannot banish the body by bidding it keep silence.  So it 
must be banished by exhaustion, and the spirit awakened by a 
sevenfold dose of the Elixir."  

"Have you the Elixir?"  she asked, rather awed.

"It is entrusted to me," he answered simply.  "To this laudable 
end I have appointed a sufficiency of Bisque Kadosh at the Cafe 
Riche, followed by Homard Cardinal and Truffes au champagne.  
With a savoury of my own invention.  The truffes au champagne of 
the Cafe Riche are more to be desired than all the hashish 
dreams of all the wicked, and than all the divine dreams of all 
the good.  We shall walk there, and drive back.  This incense 
shall be kindled, and this lamp left burning."  

He took a strange object from a locked cabinet.  It had flowered 
chased pipes of gold, copper and platinum, coiling about an egg 
of crystal.  The three snakes met just above the egg, as if to 
bite or to kiss.  Rolles filled the egg with a pale blue liquid 
from a Venetian flask, then pressed the heads of the serpents 
just a little closer together.  Instantly a coruscating flame 
leapt between them, minute, dazzling, radiant.  It continued to 
burn with a low hissing noise rarely interrupted by a dry crackle.

"It is well," said Rolles, "let us depart."  

Ida Pendragon had not said a word.  She put on her hat and 
followed to the door as fatalistically as the condemned man 
walks to the gallows.  She had passed through anticipation; she 
was content to await what might be.

At the door she whispered, hushed in awe of the real silence of 
the room with its monotonous hiss, in his ear.  "You have the 
Lamp.  I almost begin to wonder if you have not the Ring!"

"'This is a secret sign,'" he quoted, "'and thou shalt not 
disclose it unto the profane.'  Tonight yours be the ring --
the Eternal Ring, the Serpent to twine about my heart."  

"Ah! could I crush it!"

He closed the door.  Like a priest celebrating his first high 
mass he led her through Paris.  Neither spoke.  Only as they 
mounted the steps of the Cafe he took her arm and said, sharply 
and sternly: "Attention!  From this moment I am Edgar Rolles, 
and you are Ida Pendragon.  No more: not a thought of our real 
relation.  Man and woman, if you will; beasts in the jungle, if 
you will; flowers by the wayside, if you will; but nothing more. 
Else you will not only fail in the ordeal, but you will be 
swept aside out of the Path.  You were in greater danger than 
you knew this afternoon; you will yet pay the price."  

"I understand," she said.  "You devil!  I love you."  "And I 
love every inch of your white body!"

They ran laughing arm in arm through the swing doors.
.  .  .
Edgar Rolles sat curled up Hindu fashion on his bed.  The sacred 
lamp still hissed.  At his side lay Ida, her arms stretched out 
cruciform.  She hardly breathed; there was no colour in her face.
One would have said the corpse of a martyred virgin.  On her 
white body its own purity hovered like a veil.

Edgar Roles watched the lamp, erect, attentive.  It went out.  
Hardly a hint of grey filtered through the blackness.  In his 
hands he held two threads.  "One is black, and one is white, he 
mused, and only God knows which is which.  So only God knows 
what is sin.  In our darkness we who presume to declare it are 
liars -- charlatans, groping quacks at the best.  Will the sun 
never dawn?  For us on whom the lightning of ecstasy hath 
flashed for a moment -- 'much may be seen by its light' -- the 
light of the tempest.  But the Light of the Silver Star?  Oh, my 
Brothers (he began to speak aloud) give me wisdom as you have 
given me understanding!  Knowledge and grace and power?  These 
are nothing and less than nothing.  Is not this a precious think 
that you have given into my charge?  Am not I too young among 
you to bear so wonderful a burden?  It is the first time that I 
have dared so far.  The Abyss!  The Razor-Edge!  Frail bridge 
and sharp!  Yet is it not a ray of the Evening Star, a ray of 
Venus, of the Love Supernal! ..."

Can I tell black from white?  It seems I can -- and then the 
certainty flickers, and I doubt.  I doubt.  I am always doubting.
Perhaps a wise man grows angry, and declares his will.  'It 
shall be what o'cock I say it is,' or ...see !  I lay the 
threads on her white breast.  No doubt remains."  

Then clear and loud: "Ave Soror!"

The girl, as it seemed mechanically, murmured the words "Rosae 
Rubeae."  

"Et Aureae Crucis," he rejoined.

Then together, very slowly and distinctly: "Benedictus sit 
Dominus Deus Noster qui nobis dedit signum."  

It seemed hardly possible that her voice joined his.  The lips 
hardly moved; it was as if an interior voice spoke in her heart. 
Yet the room was suddenly filled with a pale green light -- or 
was it rosy?  -- or was it golden?  -- or was it like the moon?
That was the strange thing about it.  To every name one put to 
it an inward voice answered: No, not that; like that, but not 
quite that.  Luminous, spectral, cloudy, shimmering -- it was 
all these, and something more.

He placed his hand upon the girl's forehead.

"Are you perfectly awake?"  

"I am awake, frater."  

"Can you give me the sign of your grade?"  

"I must not move.  But I am poised for diving, frater."  

"The word?"  

Haltingly came the answer: "Ar--ar--it--a."  

"One is His beginning; one is His individuality; His permutation 
one.  Do not forget it, little sister."  

"Are you ready?"  

"I am ready.  Farewell -- farewell for ever!"

"Farewell."  

He took his signet-ring, and pressed a spring.  The bezel opened 
and disclosed a small jewelled wheel, divided into many 
compartments.  He pressed a second spring.  The wheel began to 
revolve, and in the silence sang a tiny tune.  It was a faint 
tinkle, like a distant cow-bell, or like a chime heard far off, 
heard from the snow.  There was an icy quality in the note.

"Where are you?"  

"I -- I --" she broke off.

His eyes lit with joy.

"I am in the sand; I am buried to the waist in the sand.  I see 
nothing but sand."  

His face fell again.

"What is sand?"  he asked.

"Oh -- just sand, you know.  Leagues and leagues of sand; like 
a great bowl of sand."  

"But what is sand?"  

"Sand -- oh! sand is God, I suppose."  There was a patience and 
weariness in her voice, as of one who has suffered long and is 
at rest, or convalescent.

"And who are you?"  

She did not answer the question.  "Now I see sky," she said.  
"Sky is God, too, I think."  

"Then do you see God?"  

"Oh no!  I think I am God, somehow.  It is all like it was 
before, long ago.  I was once a spider in the sand.  God is a 
spider; the Universe is flies.  I am a fly, too.  ...And now 
the desert is full of flies."  

Rolles bit his lip; his face was drawn with pain.  At that 
moment he looked an old man.

"Black flies," she went on.  "Horrible white maggots.  And now 
there are corpses.  The maggots play about their mouths and eyes.
There are three corpses that were God when they were alive.  I 
killed Him.  That was when I was a camel in the sand.  Now there 
are only my bones."  

"It may be only a veil," he muttered, not wishing her to hear.  
But she heard.

"It is a veil," she said.  "But is there anything behind veils?" 

"Look!"

"Only the sand."  

"Tear it down!"

"There might be Nothing behind."  

"There is Nothing behind.  It is through that that you must pass."  

"This veil is God.  I am a holy nun in the trance called Rampurana.  
I am canonised.  My name is on every banner.  My face is worshipped 
by every nation.  I am a pure virgin; all the others are soiled.  
Thought is worse than deed.  All my thoughts are holy.  I think.  
I think.  I think.  By the power of my thought I created the Word; 
and by the Word came the Worlds.  I am the creator.  I will write 
my law upon tablets of jade and onyx."  

Rolles bowed his head in silence.

"I am thought itself," she went on quietly.  "And all thought is 
I.  I am knowledge.  All knowledge is in three.  Three hundred 
and thirty-three.  I am half the Master.  I have cut him in two."

The adept shuddered.

"That was when I was an axe.  I will not be an arrow.  I will be 
an axe.  ..." She gave a giggle.

"I am gleeful by reason of hate."  

There was a pause.

"And I am gleeful because I am reason.  ..."

"All reason ends in two.  I have cut the Master in two."  

"Can she pass through?"  wondered Edgar.  "Is it a fault to be 
identified so well with that which she beholds?"  

"There are devils," she cried.  "Black, naked screaming devils.  
They touch, and at a touch each oozes back to his slime.  This 
slime is Chaos."  

"Ararita!" he breathed the word upon her brow.

"Don't touch me! don't touch me!" she screamed.  "I am holy!  I 
am God!  I am I!"  Her face was black and distorted with sudden 
passion.

"It's quite different to my own experience in many ways," 
thought the watcher.  "Yet -- is it not the essence of all 
ordeal, all initiation, that it should be unexpected?  Otherwise,
the candidate would have passed through the gate before he 
approached it.  Which is absurd."  

The last word must have been audible.

"Absurd!" she cried.  "Indeed, it is not absurd.  It is all 
rational.  It is you who are absurd."  

"Do you understand what you are saying?"  

"No!  No!  I hate all who understand.  I will bite them.  I will 
bite their waists."  Dropping her voice suddenly: "That was when 
I was a mouse-trap."  

"Dear God! this is like delirium."  

"Oh! go on about God.  I don't mind God.  I could tell you 
wonderful things about what I have done to God.  I was a 
Nonconformist preacher once: I had secret sins.  They were mine! 
Mine!  How proud I was of them!  Every Sunday I used to preach 
against the sin that I had done most in the week.  There are 
many butterflies in the desert; ever so many more than one 
would think.  This proves that God is good.  And then, you see, 
there are beetles.  Beetles and beetles.  And scorpions.  Dear 
little amber beasts.  There! one has stung me.  It is the 
sacrament of hate.  I will sleep in a bed of scorpions and rose-
leaves.  Scorpions are better than thorns.  Why do I wander 
about naked?  And why do I thirst?  And this torment of cold?  
It ought to be hot in the desert.  And it isn't.  Now that 
proves -- oh yes, my cat! you shall have milk.  I will strike a 
rock for you.  Milk and honey."  

She started up suddenly, and put her hands to her face, then 
threw them round his neck.

"Edgar, darling!" she cried, "your pussy has had such a dreadful 
dream.  Come and love his girl!"

He dared not tell her that she had tried and failed, that she 
had come come {sic} back as she set out.  He flung his will into 
that act of mercy; his kisses ravished her into delight.

It was late morning when they woke, faint with rapture, fresh 
kisses blossoming on their young lips, as the sun himself lit 
their awakening with his love.

Only then came memory, and solemnity, and sorrow.

[...]

So, with a thousand tear and kisses, they parted.  She would not 
come to see him off; her self-command was weakened alike by her 
new love and by the terrible ordeal that she had undergone.  Her 
mind remembered nothing of it -- such is the merciful order of 
things; but her soul, beaten with rods, was sore.

================================================================
Excerpt from "THE ORDEAL OF IDA PENDRAGON," which appeared in 
The Equinox, An. VII Vol I No. VI



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Date : Sun Jul 07, 03:20                                                       
From : Blue Resonant Human                                   1:330/201.1
To   : All                                 
Subj : Whitley and the Abyss (3/3)                                           
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ

Reply-to: iufo@alterzone.com
From: "Blue Resonant Human" 
Originally to: iufo@alterzone.com
Sender: iufo-approval@alterzone.com
Original Date: Sat, 06 Jul 1996 23:02:23 GMT


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Part III

Following is an excerpt from Strieber's "novel" Majestic wherein 
an alleged military/intelligence operative -- dying of lung 
cancer and seeking to appease his battered conscience -- 
describes events which took place much earlier in his life;
events brought on by his contact with "alien visitors."  

- - - - -

How incredibly alien they were.  Had I understood then who they 
were, I wonder if I would have acted differently.  All of my 
life I have wished I knew what they thought of me.  It must have 
been an incredibly funny, poignant experience -- if they had the 
full range of human feeling available to them in those strange 
bodies.

"Open your mouth," the man said.

"I will not."  

"Goddammit, I knew it.  Look, I gotta..." He threw himself at me.  
He was huge and as hard as stone.  I was too spent to resist him,
even for a second.  With one arm around my chest he held me 
from behind.  With his free hand he forced open my jaws.

I tried to clench them but his fingers were powerful.  The woman 
had a graceful little bottle from which she withdrew a curved 
dropper.

My jaws were open, I was helpless.  She put three drops of ice-
cold liquid on the tip of my tongue.  When they let me go I 
smacked and coughed.  I spat.

"You can spit," the man said.  "It doesn't matter."  

"What have you done to me?"  

"You needed that.  You're going on a trip."  

"I want to go home."  

They pushed me into one of the seats.  I quelled a wave of 
nausea, but it was followed by another, stronger one.  The man 
reached around behind my seat and came out with an airsickness 
bag from the pocket.  TRANSCONTINENTAL AIR TRANSPORT was printed 
on it in red letters.  I used it.

The air had changed.  Far from being cold, it was now thick and 
hot.  It was getting hard to breathe.  Whatever was happening to 
me, my body was being taken to the extremes of endurance.  In 
those days we knew nothing of hallucinogenic drugs.

Without a sound the walls of the room became clear.

At first I did not understand what I was seeing.  A huge shining 
strip of light curved off into the sky.  Beneath it there shone 
the amazingly complex surface of a gigantic sphere colored in a 
thousand shades of tan and green and blue.

Then I saw that it was all surrounded by reefs and oceans of 
stars, stars in endless numbers, stars beyond belief in a 
billion colors winking, as if God's own treasury had been 
spilled.

We appeared to be in the rings of Saturn.  How far from earth 
would that be?  I couldn't even begin to remember.  However, I 
was completely convinced that we had come an awfully long 
distance in a very short time.

In the middle of the clear wall was a round doorway.  It did not 
appear to open into the view around us at all, but revealed 
broad plains beneath the light of a strange, brown sky.  It 
looked like a patch pasted on the wall of stars.

I had no intention of going through that door.


::: The Chronicle of Wilfred Stone :::

The next second I was standing in a desert.  It was strewn with 
sharp black boulders that shone dully in the weak light.  A 
forlorn breeze fluttered my paper garment.

I was aware of the fact that Saturn was a ball of gas, so I did 
not imagine myself to be there.  I didn't know where I was.  
They had removed me from reality.  A few minutes before I had 
been struggling in the depths of a cave, now I was on a desert 
worse than the Sahara.

I have wondered at those events, trying to determine if they 
were physically real or if they happened in some other way.

I was here, and the grit underfoot was real and the air was 
crackling dry and the sky was brown.

I staggered a few steps, hitting my naked foot against one of 
the stones.  I sat down, rubbing my ankle.  I looked around.

In a way that is almost impossible to describe, this place was 
unfamiliar.  Even the details were wrong.  Perhaps especially 
the details.  The shape and color of the stones, the quality of 
the sand, all of it was wrong.  Even the air against my skin 
felt different.

I wasn't really thinking anymore.  I was just here, my eyes 
looking out into the open.

Which was, of course, the whole point.  My humanity had dropped 
away.  I was still conscious, but I was an animal again.

And I was so lonely.  I raised my head to the brown sky and 
keened.  My sound was the only noise in the place.  It seemed to 
be coming at once from far away and from deep within me, deeper 
than I had ever been.  I took a breath, did it again.  My spirit 
rose with the sound, for a moment to fill the empty air with the 
magic of being.

Then it died away and I was little again and it was getting dark.

I suspect that we made such sounds when we lived in the forest.

Grabbing a rock I stood up.  I threw it a tremendous long 
distance.

It landed with an empty thud.

I raced across the plain, dodging and skipping with a grace I 
had never before possessed.

When I came to a high point I stopped.  Seeking for the scent of 
water, I smelled the air.

A growl of frustration came from my throat.  The sound startled 
me.  At first I thought there was some kind of animal behind me. 
Then I thought, "No, that is how you're supposed to sound."  

I was me, me alone.  No name, no education, no expectations.  
Just me.

The sky was pale and unmarked by clouds.  Not far above the 
horizon there was a powdery brilliance, which I presumed was the 
sun in deep haze.

Next I scanned the horizon, looking carefully for some sign of 
life, a swatch of green, perhaps, or the glitter of water.  Then 
I looked for smoke or just the outline of a building.

The place was completely empty and entirely silent.

Again I smelled the parched air.  I was already quite thirsty; I 
couldn't live like this for long.  The air was so dry that it 
was leaching moisture from my body.  My hands looked like paper, 
the skin puckered and shriveled.  I touched my face, feeling 
fissures that had never been there before.  And my nose was 
cracked inside.

Where would I go, naked except for a flimsy piece of paper?  
Graceful or not, my feet were thoroughly banged up from the mad 
run.  I don't think there was a single rock that wasn't sharp.

For the most part the desert seemed absolutely flat, but off to 
my right the land rose.  I could not judge distances.  The views,
though, seemed much longer than they had any right to be.

I walked in the direction of the rising land.  At least this 
would keep the sun behind me.  What had appeared to be the 
gentlest of rises soon became quite steep.  I wasn't going to be 
able to keep this up forever.  My chest and head ached, my legs 
felt like lead, my feet were on fire.

Very suddenly I started to have trouble seeing.  At first I didn't 
understand why, because I did not realize how fast night came. 
By the time I realized what was wrong the sun was already on 
the horizon.

It seemed as if the air literally absorbed light.  The instant 
the disk of the sun disappeared it was absolutely dark.  There 
were only one or two bright stars visible through the dusty haze.

God, this place was ugly.

I sat down.  There was no point in walking farther without light.
The dark was like ink, like something you could feel.

I wished they'd at least left me my lighter.

Then I was crying bitterly.  The tears came without warning.  I 
had been left here to die.  It was so damn unfair and I was so 
far from home.

Later I heard something, or thought I did.  Now that it was dark 
I didn't want this.  I didn't want to hear anything that I 
couldn't see.

The sound was low and slow and high in the air.  It was as if 
some tremendous thing was floating through the sky above me, 
breathing.

The breathing got louder and louder.  I felt like it was right 
above me, huge.  I cringed, waiting for it to land on me.

Instead it went away.  I let out my breath.

No sooner had I begun to relax than there was a tremendous 
rattling noise in the distance.

It got closer and closer and lower and lower and I could hear 
the breathing again, fast and excited.  There was urgency in it, 
like a starving prisoner inhaling the aroma of the jailer's soup.

A new sound started up, sharp scraping.  It was very regular, as 
if somebody was slashing knives together.

Something whizzed through the air just above me, so close that 
my hair was touched with a breeze.

Involuntarily I shrank away-and saw a red glow out of the corner 
of my eye.  I looked.  Redness spread along the horizon on my 
left.

A moment later a huge red star popped up and the place was 
bathed in dim, bloody light.

There seemed to be a forest of thin trees all around me.  It 
took me time to understand that I was looking at tall, black 
legs, many of them.

It took every ounce of my composure not to scream.  I was under 
what appeared to be a gigantic insect of some kind, perhaps a 
spider.  The rattling noise started again.  I could see sharp 
mouth parts working.

Jumping, twisting, turning to avoid the legs I made a dash to 
get away from the thing.

It rose up into the air, making a gigantic leap.  I had to 
scramble to avoid it landing right on top of me.  Again I ran.  
This time I threw stones at it.

It leaped.

I evaded, but barely.  I scrambled up the rise on the theory 
that those jumps would be harder uphill.  They weren't.  It 
sailed high into the red air and came down on top of me.

Legs clutched, mandibles scraped -- and I was caught.  I grabbed 
a rock and hammered against one of the limbs.  For all the good 
it did I might as well have been trying to break steel pipe.

I fought against its quick, clever legs.  Finally I went wild.  
I hit, kicked, bit.  The jaws were slashing and I could see a 
bright green tongue darting in and out of its mouth.  I was 
brought closer and closer to being sliced to pieces.

I could not possibly taste good to the thing.  It was sure to 
tear me to pieces and spit me out.  I was furious at dying so 
pointlessly.

Then the legs pressed me against the wide open mouth and I began 
to die.

As I sank away I saw around me a starry night of home.  I was 
back at our old house.  We were playing on the porch, my sister 
and I.  I saw her beside me, attending to her beloved doll 
Ricardo.  That word -- I hadn't thought of it since I was tiny.  
The moment was bathed in a light that seemed to contain some 
essential emotion of loss and urgency.

There was between me and the thing that was devouring me a 
kinship of tremendous power.  It pushed my fear aside and I lay 
like a raptured lover in the forest of legs.

If this was death, from where did love emerge?

I was dropped on the ground from a distance of a few feet-put 
down gently.  For an instant I saw the complex face of the thing 
that had held me.  It looked like nothing so much as a 
tremendous mantis.  But those eyes -- huge, reflecting the red 
air -- were not blank.  I was shocked.  Somebody was looking at 
me.  Joy rang out.  There was peace, wisdom and then a cock of 
the head: the irony of our situation.  Soundless in the charged 
air, laughter.

I was left collapsed on the ground, drained now not only of my 
culture and my name but also of my physical strength.

Bit by bit I was being demolished, reduced to the simplest nub 
of self.

I lay staring at the sky.  Did I sleep?  I don't know, but when 
I finally felt like getting to my feet I was stiff and ached in 
every joint.

Keeping the red sun on my right I forced myself up the rise.  As 
I walked I understood that I had been brought a long distance.  
Before me there stood the most tremendous cliff I'd ever seen.  
It seemed to go up for thousands and thousands of feet.

On its highest ridge there was a very distinct blue glow.  The 
glow was pulsating.

Life.

So the attack had not been an attack at all.  Somebody had 
simply been helping me.

The cliff was not sheer.  There were plenty of footholds, and 
I had already reached a dizzying height when the red sun sank 
below the horizon.

Again darkness came abruptly.  I was left hugging the wall in 
front of me, afraid to go another inch.

I don't think it was dark for more than ten minutes.  When the 
pale sun rose again I resumed my climb.

There were moments of dizziness when I would have to stop.  I 
wasn't in shape for a climb like this.  My throat felt as if it 
had been packed with powdered glass.  My head pounded.

Not only was I thirsty, I was also becoming hungry.  I kept 
remembering that beef stew I'd had for lunch.  Once I even 
sucked a bit of it from between two teeth.

When that happened I hugged the rock and cried like a baby.  The 
loneliness came again, and stopped me for a long time.

The higher I went the more difficult the climb became.  Worse, 
the soil up here was friable and there wasn't a single stable 
handhold.  I had to dig down then haul myself up as the dirt 
collapsed around me.

Above me the blue glow was massive.  I tried to call out but it 
was no good.  I hadn't a trace of a voice.

At this height the cliff was more like a sand dune.  To make 
headway I had to lie against it and squirm.  I was so frustrated 
that I would have been in tears, but I had no tears.

It took me some time to realize that I'd made it.

Before me was a sparse but huge park.  I dragged myself onto the 
surface, which I found to consist of tightly matted grass, 
bright green.  I inhaled it, chewed at it trying to get some 
moisture.  It was very dry.

I pulled myself to my feet.  Off to my left there was a stand of 
tall, narrow trees.  They were really huge, a hundred and more 
feet high by my estimation.

Directly ahead I saw a truly welcome vision, a cluster of 
buildings.  They were obviously adobe.  It looked very much like 
a Hopi town.  I started stumbling forward.

A smell came to me on the air-or rather, a sensation.  This was 
dampness.  It loosened my drum-tight skin.  It filled my nose 
with life, made my lungs open.

As best I could I ran.

Then I saw it.  A fountain.  It was made of black, shiny stone, 
round, with water playing out of a nozzle in the center.

I plunged my head in and opened my mouth.  The water was 
glorious, cold and pure and perfect.  I could feel my skin 
drinking, my mouth, sucking and drinking.  Never had I 
experienced such raw pleasure.  It was ecstatic, delicious, 
almost sexual in its intensity.

Finally I raised my head.  Beyond the fountain there was a small 
garden.

In the garden stood a child.  Her looks did not matter to me; 
what I saw was the radiance within.  I ran to her as would a 
youth to his perfect love.


[the transcription stops as the author recollects the interview]

I finally felt what I should have felt from the beginning for 
Wilfred Stone.  My youth and arrogance had prevented me, though.

I looked at that old man in a completely new way.  I reached 
toward him.  He looked down at my hand, and then at me.  In his 
eyes was an emotion I cannot name.  It sent a jagged edge of 
fear through me, as if I had scented death.

"Turn it off," he said.  I put down the tape recorder.  He 
flipped the switch.  He didn't actually tell me to leave out the 
material that follows, but that was the implication.

I do not feel that he was right, but out of respect for him -- 
yes, respect -- I took notes on this part of his narrative of 
the other world, rather than record it.

[the experience resumes]


The wise child walked quickly away, a chalky ghost in the gloom. 
She was the size of a three-year-old but her movements were 
mature.

Will called out.

She stopped when she heard him.  When she smiled he sensed what 
he described as something almost vampiric about her.  There was 
a sense of tremendous, overwhelming power, the night in the 
child.

He felt himself in the presence of tremendous wisdom.  This was 
what it was like to be with somebody who had gone beyond the 
human.

His next words just popped out, as if formed from purest 
instinct.  "Help us," he said.

The response was immediate.  The next second he was back in his 
boyhood home in Westchester County.

The whole place was flooded with pure, sweet light.  He could 
hardly believe it.  And this was no illusion.  Will says that he 
was *there*.

What's more, he remembers the event now from two different 
perspectives -- that of himself as a little boy encountering a 
strange, shadowy man in his room ...and also that of himself as 
the man.

The old red fire engine was there, standing against the wall 
opposite his crib.

He moved slowly around in his room.  The wonder of it made 
everything seem jewel-like and perfect.

Then he noticed movement in the crib.  His own curly head, his 
blue eyes-the Willy Stone of thirty and more years ago rose up 
and climbed deftly out to the floor.  Will could smell his baby 
freshness, could hear him, see him.

"Oh God, God," he told me, "Nick, my heart just broke in two.  I 
was so little!  And in that huge, shadowy, mysterious world, the 
courage in the eyes..."

The wise children, the others, had brought him home to the best 
and purest thing that he was.

He remembered a warm, huge hand that had come out of the dark ...
and suddenly the curtains blew and the moonlight came in and he 
saw a huge, terrible man, a nightmare man bending over him.

He screamed, a high bullet of a sound.

Feet pounded from downstairs.  Will the man saw his father's 
balding head shining in the moonlight as he came up the stairs.  
Behind him his mother floated in her lace and silk.

He stepped into the shadows.

Will as child was terrified.  "Daddy!  Man!  Man here!"

He saw his own father engulf him in himself and carry him like a 
limp offering back to the crib.

Then the room fell away, growing smaller and smaller until it 
was a dot of light in the air, and then was gone.

The vampire child was dancing slow turns around him.  She 
stopped and smiled a dangerous smile.  And he felt nothing but 
love.

At the far end of the oasis there was a tall arch, and beyond it 
a round, tumbledown building.

He wanted to go there, but she restrained him, pushing against 
his belly as a clown child might against her clown father.

Leaving him for a moment she ran to a small table.  She pointed. 
On it there was a plain gray plate and three gray pancakes.  
Will realized that he was ravenous.  He remembers still the 
taste of that food, the pure flavor of the buckwheat from which 
the cakes were made, the sense of a freshness he had never 
tasted before.

There was also a wide bowl of water.  The girl came and scooped 
it up for him and he drank from her cupped hands.

Afterward she sang to him in a whispering voice, in a language 
he did not know.  He began to feel sleepy and lay down on his 
side.

Much later he was awakened by a soft hand stroking his head.

He jumped to his feet.  All the weight of his years seemed to 
have fallen away.

He walked, then, as his excitement rose; finally he ran to the 
ancient building.  Where the blue-gray stones were intact their 
perfect fit reminded him of Inca work, but for the most part the 
place was cracked and crumbling.

He went up the steps and into a wide, cool hall.  It was made of 
dark-blue stone worked with great intricacy.  When he tried to 
follow the labyrinth of these carvings his head began to pound.  
Finally he had to stop looking at the walls, the ceiling, and 
keep his eyes on the floor.

There was a circle of children sitting before him.  It was all 
so very familiar.  Words came to him: beyond fear there is 
another life.

Was this the place the dead went?

Had he been killed?  Was that what this meant?

He went to the center of the circle and waited, standing quite 
still.  He soon heard a drum beating out in the corridor.  The 
sound stirred him, infected him, made him start to move.

The children began to chant in repetitive notes, wonderful notes.

He spread his arms and started to turn.  The room whirled and 
the drum pulsed and chanting hypnotized him.

He remembered his own beginning.

He was moving swiftly and secretly across the sky of home.  
There were little flecks of cloud.  He went past them and down 
into the spreading summer trees.  He moved around a great, 
gnarled limb, his heart full of love and delicious with the 
secrecy of his coming.  His movement was so stealthy that not 
even a grasshopper stirred from her rasping as he passed by.

Then he saw a window.  The shades were drawn but he passed 
through them as if there was nothing there.

The room was dim and very quiet.  A young woman lay on a bed, 
her head turned to one side.  She was as fresh and lovely as new 
light, covered only by a thin gown.  Brown curls spread over her 
brow.  Her belly was huge.

He loved her terribly, and could not resist going closer to her. 
Then he began to drift downward.  He could no longer float.

In an instant he was inside her womb, a glowing cavern.  Her 
body was roaring, the heart fluttering like a tent in the wind, 
her whole self a bubbling, oozing bladder barely managing to 
contain its liquids.

He swam into the fluid of her and drank her and smelled her 
essential flower, and was filled with the taste and sense of her.

There began a dialogue between them, long speaking together of 
the days they would spend as mother and son.

He would love her as a boy, but when she grew old he would 
abandon her.  His love for deception would replace his love for 
her and so she would die alone, her breast weakly shuddering, on 
a cot in the hallway of a public cancer ward.

He sat before me, his head bowed, tears streaming from his eyes. 
So this was what he didn't want recorded and why he never, ever 
mentioned his mother.  I wanted to help him, to offer him some 
word of comfort but I could not.  We are all betrayers, all of 
us.

To find true joy one must first accept true pain.

Once again he was back in his old bedroom, only not as a man.  
This time he was a little boy again.  He was dancing and dancing.
It was a moonlit night and there was danger in the air.  
Terrible things were happening.

He saw waves of ships crossing the highest air.  They were gray 
disks and the streets below rang with screams.

But more people were singing than were screaming and chains lay 
abandoned that had weighted their shoulders.

"The lamb will lie down with the lion."  The secret meaning is 
that the son will love the errant father, the lamb will welcome 
the hungry nuzzling of the wolf-mother, the rat will perish of 
love as the owl's talons pierce his heart.

Beyond fear there is another world.

[end excerpt]

- - - - -

From the Abyss;

Fra. B.R.H.



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