The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story

by Andrew Collins

  By the end of the day, this is what I had found …

  During the early hours of that morning, England had been struck by the worst gales in living memory and the first hurricane since 1703. Tropical winds gusting up to speeds in excess of 110 mph had torn through the southeast counties, leaving a horrifying trail of death and destruction in their wake.

  Never before had anyone seen anything quite like it on these shores. Thousands of families were left homeless as buildings collapsed like houses of cards. Roofs had been wrenched into the air and windows exploded. Millions of people were now without heat, electricity and telephones as overhead cables and power lines crashed to the ground. Caravans, lorries and vans had been overturned and boats in coastal regions scooped up and tossed onto dry land.

  Hundreds of years of heritage had been destroyed in an instant of time as an estimated fifteen million trees were wrenched from their roots and sent crashing onto roads, railway lines, overhead cables and houses. And worst of all, as the first light of day had brought with it a harsh sense of calmness and reality, twenty people were found to have died as a direct result of the nightmarish winds.

  Now there were angry questions being asked by everyone. Why had a hurricane not been forecast? There had been no mention at all of approaching gales the previous evening. The Meteorological Office at Bracknell in Berkshire could give no satisfactory answer. They had plotted the birth of the hurricane in the Bay of Biscay around noon on the 15th when a collision of hot air currents from Africa had fused with cold Arctic air from the North Atlantic to form the deepest depression ever recorded. Yet they had predicted that the imminent storms would hit northern France—not England.

  They got it wrong. The hurricane was on its way, unannounced. By 9 pm, as the winds entered the English Channel, they increased to speeds of up to 75 mph. By 1 am the gales had reached the Channel Islands with winds now gusting in excess of 110 mph. Around 3 am, as the majority of the country lay asleep in their beds, the malevolent southerly and southwesterly winds had begun their path of destruction across the coastal counties of Dorset, Hampshire and Sussex.

  For three terrifying hours, the hurricane had wrought havoc and mayhem as it gradually moved north-eastwards towards the East Anglian coast. Only with the approach of dawn, around 7 am, had the winds begun to abate, moving peacefully out into the relative safety of the North Sea.

  A massive cleanup operation was now under way, although it would take weeks, if not months, for life to return to normal and the full extent of the hurricane’s damage to be fully realised.

  25 The Dark Goddess

  Saturday, 24th October, 1987. ‘I have found more accounts of strange dreams and visions on the night of the hurricane,’ Caroline revealed, as my Sierra drove away from her South London home. We were heading for Oxford, where we were to attend an annual symposium on the nature, origins and history of ritual magic organised by the Oxford Golden Dawn Society.

  ‘A girl named Karen from the same magical group I belong to said she dreamt of wolves that night. She mentioned this without any prompting at all.’

  Any more?

  ‘Yes, Chesca Potter, the artist,’ she announced, before relating what had happened at the writing class with her drawing of the lightning blasted tree, and later at her flat in King’s Cross. ‘At the height of the hurricane she was compelled to paint an incredibly vivid picture of the Hindu goddess Kali,’ Caroline said, gazing out at the crowds of Saturday shoppers lining the busy streets. ‘She felt she had to finish it before dawn.

  ‘What’s really interesting is that Hindus who want to keep wolves away from their homes prey to Kali, as she has power over them.’

  Curious.

  ‘Anyway, Chesca will be at the conference exhibiting her paintings,’ she added. ‘So you can speak to her then.’

  I had also come across some strange dreams and psychic incidents that had taken place at the height of the hurricane.

  In Leigh-on-Sea, one woman I knew named Carole Young had spent the night of the hurricane listening to the terrifying intensity of the gusting winds. Apparently, around 4 am, her ears had unexpectedly heard a disturbing sound—a long, piercing scream, seemingly that of a woman, which had lasted for several seconds and been carried by the wind itself.

  So real was the voice that she had immediately jumped out of bed, believing it to be a woman in distress. Seeing no one, she had moved to the landing, where on looking out of a window saw a fair-sized tree being dragged along the empty road by the sheer force of the incredible winds. Perplexed, she had given up and returned to bed, assuming the female scream to be somehow spectral in origin.

  What she did not know is that a high-pitched female voice carried on the wind is a sign of Black Annis, an ancient British death goddess described in legend as a hooded crone or hag, with a hideous blue face and long, claw-like nails. In her Scottish form as Gentle Annie, or Gentle Annis, she is a weather spirit with command over winds and gales.

  Elsewhere in the country, a girl named Andrea from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire had spoken to me about a powerful and vivid dream she had experienced that night. Like Gaynor, she had found herself being held prisoner in a house by a crone of hideous appearance. The building, she recalled, had been located at a crossroads, a site associated, like the crone, with Hekate, the Greek goddess of the night.

  The hideous hag had appeared to possess a hold over Andrea, which she clearly found distressing. The dream had culminated in the old woman continually approaching her and opening her mouth full of ill-formed teeth to emit a foul-stinking breath which, she emphasised, had reeked of ‘rotting flesh and blood’, even of death itself.

  Shortly afterwards, Andrea had awoken to the sound of the gale-force winds, which had by no means been intense in Buckinghamshire. She concluded that the unnerving dream was linked with the presence of the hurricane.

  So what was going on? Why had there been so many closely related dreams, visions and mystical experiences during the night of the hurricane? More particularly, why had so many people picked up on wolves, goddesses of the night and crone-like women?

  As the car moved out of London and onto the motorway, we worked out a few answers to these puzzling questions. After an hour or so of intense discussion, this is the way it looked …

  In the past, the chaotic, destructive might of a nocturnal hurricane was associated, through its airborne approach, unearthly sounds and unimaginable power, with the presence of a dark goddess, a supernatural deity perceived as wrathful and hag-like in appearance.

  This terrifying goddess of death and the night was known by various names, such as Black Annis in England and the Cailleach Bheur or Gentle Annis in Scotland.

  Kali was quite obviously her name in India.

  In Europe and Asia Minor she went under the name Hekate, who bore various titles including Queen of the Night, Queen of Ghosts, Devourer of Corpses, Lady of Suicides and Untimely Deaths, and Mistress of Magic and Sorcery.

  Hekate is usually portrayed as a triple goddess with three heads, three bodies (sometimes just one), and six arms and legs. Each of her hands clasp a different object, including a sacrificial blade, flaming torch, large key and writhing snake, all of which signify different aspects of her worship.

  Her appearance is usually that of a mature woman, although more commonly she takes the form of a barren crone—a hag— dressed in a black or grey cowled robe, and it is in this guise that she bears the grand title Queen of the Witches.

  Hekate is considered at her most potent around the time of the full moon closest to the beginning of November, the point in the year marking the halfway mark, or cross-quarter day, between the autumn equinox and winter solstice. Hekate’s presence then remains strong across the dark, winter months until the coming of spring when her influence finally wanes.

  Over the centuries Hekate, in her role as the dark winter crone, became associated with an archaic festival of the dead, usually celebrated on 1st November. In Christian lore this feast day
is known as All Hallows’ or All Saints’ Day, with the evening prior to it being All Hallow’s Eve, or Hallowe’en.

  It is a night when witches, spirits and demons are thought to be abroad, and the veils between this world and the next are considered particularly thin, necessitating the living to protect themselves against the forces of darkness (from which we derive the modern Hallowe’en celebrations). It is also the time that the souls of the dead are thought to return to the world of the living.

  It was for this reason that All Souls’ Day, celebrated on 2nd November, became established—All Saints’ Day being reserved for the return of the Christian saints, whose combined powers were evoked to banish the dark forces that threatened the world of the living at this time.

  Hekate—or the Dark Goddess in her localised form—was appeased and worshipped across Europe with great solemnity, and even sacrifice, whilst her presence was confirmed through dreams and visions experienced by oracles, witches and sorcerers. More significantly, Hekate was said to have ridden the storms of the night as leader of the Wild Hunt, in which form she was known as Lykaina, Greek for ‘she-wolf’,25 a name borne also by her female acolytes.

  Somehow, the hurricane striking unannounced, under the cover of darkness, had unleashed a secondary primeval force of equal potency. This was experienced by some people as dreams and visions involving crones, wolves and dark goddesses, all attributes of Hekate in her role as Lykaina, the she-wolf.

  39. A Graeco

  Roman image of the triple goddess Hekate, with her central head as Lykaina—the shewolf.

  ‘So you think all these experiences were simply archetypal dreams and visions?’ Caroline asked, attempting not to react to my cursing as we proceeded to get lost in Oxford city centre.

  I never said that. I meant only that these experiences were all part of some kind of collective response to the presence of the hurricane on a psychic level.

  ‘Well, for me, it was real,’ Caroline said, almost indignantly. ‘Very real indeed.’

  ‘It was as if something was there, compelling me to finish it,’ the petite and effervescent artist said from behind a trestle table, adorned with her paintings and illustrations. Chesca Potter was one of a number of exhibitors in a special room at the symposium held on the first floor of Oxford’s prestigious town hall, a remarkable building in the high gothic style.

  Finding the picture of the lightning blasted tree, drawn just before the hurricane struck southeast England, she handed it to me.

  40. Chesca Potter’s picture of the lightning blasted tree drawn in the hours prior to the hurricane striking southeast England. I studied it carefully. It looked as if the tree was on fire. She then picked up her painting of Kali, the Hindu goddess of death, which was also engulfed in flames.

  ‘It was like an obsession,’ she admitted, holding up the picture. ‘I knew something was wrong, and I just had to draw her, there and then, and finish it by dawn.’

  I listened with great interest to Chesca, before handing back her evocative image of the tree on fire.

  ‘No, you can keep it,’ she said, as if it was mine already. What? Are you sure?

  ‘Yes, yes, I’m sure. You’ll have better use for it than me,’ she said, with a polite smile.

  I nodded my approval, and thanked her implicitly.

  Leaving the room full of stalls, I moved out into the foyer for a cigarette—uncharacteristic for me, as normally I only smoked after six o’clock in the evening. There was a specific reason for being at the symposium that day. I wanted to try and find someone who might be able to decipher the strange symbols on the Black Alchemist’s stone fixing markers.

  Caroline had suggested a gentleman named Terry DuQuesne, who would be in attendance. He was a worldrenowned expert on Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri, and had already written extensively on the subject in academic journals.

  He seemed perfect, and so the two of us waited around until the lecture in progress came to an end, and symposium delegates started to disgorge out of the main hall. It was a mixed bunch of people, ranging from bow-tied Oxbridge post-graduates to blackclad Goths and hardened chaos magicians. They were all here with one vision in mind—sharing their belief in the reality of ritual magic and the occult.

  I stared intently, not knowing who exactly I might be looking for here.

  ‘Terry DuQuesne’s over there,’ Caroline announced, as we suddenly found ourselves in the way of symposium delegates gathering in groups, lighting up cigarettes and chatting incessantly.

  ‘If anyone will know what the Black Alchemist is up to, he will.’

  Caroline moved through the crowds to pick out a tall, stocky, quite distinguished gentleman in his mid forties with short, wavy, light-coloured hair and large metal-framed glasses.

  ‘I wonder if you can help us,’ she was saying to the bewildered academic. ‘I want you to meet my friend Andy Collins. He’s been having some problems from someone called the Black Alchemist who keeps leaving his calling cards at sacred sites.’

  The large man came towards me, politely holding out his hand for me to take.

  ‘Terry DuQuesne, Andy,’ Caroline said, stepping out the way with a look of accomplishment on her face.

  Before he had a chance to say much, I presented him with one of the fixing markers—the sword-like piece of slate found almost exactly a year earlier beneath the church tower at Rettendon in Essex. Perhaps better than any other, it displayed the Black Alchemist’s combined use of Greek words and magical symbols. It mimicked also those carved on the original stone spearhead found at Lullington in 1985.

  His look of mild bemusement seemed to disappear as he peered intently at the slim piece of slate with its curious inscription. Silently moving over to a nearby table, he opened his attaché case and slipped out several sheets of personalised headed notepaper.

  It was looking good. So, were they Greek words on the spearhead?

  ‘Oh yes, they’re definitely Greek,’ he confirmed, still studying the ritual artefact, which he now placed on the table next to the headed notepaper.

  ‘Look here, at this word,’ he began in a slow, refined tone. He stabbed a finger at the longest of the three words on the slate’s face, which read: . This he now wrote both in Greek and in the nearest English equivalent, which is M-A-L-I-A-R-I-OS.

  ‘And this one,’ he continued, scribbling down the second word— . ‘It reads S-A-O. I’m not sure about the third word.’ This Terry wrote down in Greek as and in English—O-M-OE.’

  But what did they mean?

  Terry thought about the question. ‘Well, although I’ve not come across these particular spellings before, I’ve seen very similar words in Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri,’ he explained. ‘They are goetic barbarous names—words of power used in the Graeco-Egyptian world by priests and magicians as chants or tonal calls to invoke or banish perceived magical forces.’

  Goetic barbarous names. I had heard the term before, but knew no more.

  ‘Goetic means, literally, “to howl”,’ he pointed out. ‘Such words were always thought by scholars to be gibberish, meaningless expressions.

  ‘However, I have been studying this subject for some years and have found that a great many such names are in fact corruptions of Aramaic, Egyptian and Hebrew titles of God. Look at this.’ He returned to his own renderings of the three Greek words from the spearhead.

  Caroline and I stood either side of him, taking in his every word.

  ‘Maliarios,’ he pronounced, decisively. ‘It’s a word found in certain Graeco-Egyptian magical papyri, under the spelling “Modorio” or “Mabarroia”, which appear to be corruptions of the Aramaic/Hebrew title “Lord of Luminaries” or “Lord of Hosts”, a name of God. I’m working on a new translation of a GraecoEgyptian magical spell right now that contains the same term.’

  His index finger now moved to the second of the three words—sao. ‘S-A-O,’ he offered, ‘is probably a mispelling of IAO, an Egyptian Coptic and Gnostic Christian name for the Supr
eme Being, which is itself a corruption of the Hebrew title Sabaoth meaning, simply, “hosts”. As I said, these goetic sounds are very often scrambled names of God.’

  What about the third word: omoe?

  Terry took his attention away from the spearhead and notepaper scattered across the table. ‘Unfortunately, it means nothing that I know of,’ he admitted.

  Shifting his interest now to the Black Alchemist himself, the academic summed up his suspected image of the man: ‘All I can say about this person is they don’t use Greek fluently, as it is poorly written. Having said this, whoever inscribed this stone is conversant with the intricacies of Graeco-Egyptian magic.’

  I wasn’t entirely sure what Graeco-Egyptian magic actually meant. Greek-influenced Egyptian magic, I assumed.

  Terry shook his head. ‘No, Graeco-Egyptian magic is a combination of Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Hebrew and Gnostic Christian curses, magic and spells, which came out of Egypt between the first and sixth centuries AD. It even has its own magical alphabet.

  ‘Most Renaissance magic and symbolism has its roots in Graeco-Egyptian magic and alchemy,’ he explained. ‘Yet so few of the primary texts have ever been translated.’

  I had no idea.

  ‘Anyway, I would certainly like to know more about this Black Alchemist, as you call him,’ the academic said, intrigued by the thought of such a character out there somewhere, using archaic forms of magic so important to him.

  So would we.

  ‘Give me a call sometime, and we’ll discuss this further. Let me write down my number.’

  Collecting up the inscribed stone and notepaper, I said I would ring him to arrange a meeting.

  Terry was now being coerced away by a group of conference goers who appeared to want to steal his attention. ‘Are you coming to the café for a tea or coffee?’ he asked, glancing back towards us for the last time.

  We thanked him for the offer, but instead made our way out onto the balcony overlooking the town hall’s main foyer.