The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story

by Andrew Collins

  Making coffee, he thought again about the situation. What had happened that night meant his senses could easily be controlled by malevolent entities.

  So why had the simple protection ritual not worked?

  He shook his head as he began to realise he was losing the battle. A few more incidents like this and it could kill him, and he knew he was not fooling himself.

  33 The Griffin

  Thursday, 5th November, 1987. Having returned to the office after completing the advertising copy for the coming issue of the Leigh Times, I sat on a desk and tried to find the effort to leave for home.

  The telephone rang and photographer Brian Fenning picked up the receiver. ‘Andy, it’s for you,’ he said, a look of puzzlement on his face. ‘Someone called … Bernard?’

  He did not recognise the name, and no wonder. It was the first time Bernard had ever rung the office, so something had to be wrong. Leaping to the phone, I announced my presence.

  ‘I’m going up to Danbury,’ he revealed, in what sounded like an agitated tone of voice. ‘I was violently sick last night when I tried to attune to the dream. I’ve also been getting all sorts of strange feelings and impressions of the churchyard.’

  He paused for a moment as if searching for words to express his feelings.

  ‘I don’t know what’s going on. I really don’t. But something’s happening up there.’

  Accepting his concern, we promptly arranged to meet at The Griffin. However, I made him promise not to venture into the churchyard alone, whatever happened. He was to wait for me before doing anything.

  Throwing down the receiver, I rushed home in a state of virtual panic. Flying around the house, I kept on my shirt and tie, put on an overcoat, picked up various magical items of protection, including a crucifix and flask of holy water.

  About to leave, I remembered the swordstick given to Bernard the previous November by the Indian mystic at the antiques and collectors’ fair. To date, it had not been used for anything other than blasting open the south door of Danbury church, so perhaps it would come in handy. I grabbed it and walked out the door.

  The car clock showed 6.35 pm as I entered The Griffin’s car park. Not seeing Bernard’s Orion, I picked up the swordstick and decided to take a brisk walk across to the church. Just to make sure nothing was out of place.

  A little apprehensively, I crossed the green before entering the brightly-lit churchyard.

  The brightly-lit churchyard. Of course, it was a full moon. Looking up at the pale lunar orb, surrounded by an array of twinkling stars, I knew this was why the Black Alchemist might have struck tonight.

  Then, as if to add to the situation, a spectacular firework rocketed into the sky and exploded in a mass of coloured light.

  Of course! It was 5th November—Bonfire Night, the traditional name for Guy Fawkes’ Night.

  I had been expecting the Black Alchemist to make his move at the weekend - Saturday, 7th November, not on the actual crossquarter day, which was 5th November, that very day.

  So had he been out there already? In the churchyard somewhere, invoking Paphotia?

  I decided to take a look.

  A thick blanket of mist hung low over the gravestones and box tombs. Aside from this everything seemed quiet and still. Nothing appeared to be out of place. But something must have happened or else Bernard would not have rung me in such an agitated state.

  Anyway, he would arrive shortly, and all would be revealed then.

  Walking across to The Griffin, I saw Bernard now standing in the car park awaiting my appearance. So, after putting away the swordstick, we retired into the pub.

  Sitting down at a table in the lounge bar, Bernard took out a few pages of folded notes and asked for my comments. They concerned the strange dream he had experienced the night before last, along with some automatic writing scribbled down the previous evening.

  Having read and digested their contents, I told him what I knew about Maria the Jewess. She was a female alchemist mentioned in certain Graeco-Egyptian texts on magic and alchemy. However, no one rightly knew her true identity, as the title Maria the Jewess was thought to be a pseudonym.

  Some early scholars of alchemy even believed she was Miriam, the sister of Moses. Others saw Maria the Jewess as a Gnostic Christian or alchemical form of the Virgin Mary, a fact almost certainly relevant to Bernard’s dream. Moreover, she gets a mention in the works of Zosimos. He talks about her, almost as if he actually knew her.

  Although quite obviously symbolic in content, it appeared that someone—BA most probably—was warping the traditional associations between Maria the Jewess and the Mother of God. Instead of a pure, youthful maiden who, by way of Immaculate Conception, gives birth to the Son of God, this antithesis of the Virgin Mary was being seen as a crone—an old spinster—who somehow achieves diabolic conception in an obscene and corrupt manner.

  If this was so, then it implied that the hooded crone, who was simply Paphotia under another name, was being seen as the bearer of an antichrist—a new dark power of immense magical potency being nurtured through magical operations initiated by the Black Alchemist.

  I had no real idea what the rest of his dream, or the automatic script, actually meant, especially the noose around the neck.

  It made no sense to me whatsoever, other than to say that Bernard was in danger, especially as hanging was one of the methods the Black Alchemist had intended to kill us during the Running Well confrontation the previous year. Bernard would have to watch out, especially in the churchyard.

  So had he any idea what was going on out there?

  He forced a smile, trying to mask his obvious concern over this simple question. ‘I don’t know yet,’ was his cautious reply. ‘I just keep seeing glimpses of the churchyard. Something’s going on, so I thought I’d come up here.’

  So nothing definite?

  He shook his head as he picked up his drink and took a gulp. ‘No… just feelings at the moment.’

  Frowning, I decided to put forward a plan of action assuming, of course, that something untoward was going on in the churchyard. Bernard, I suggested, should try to gain mental communication with his spirit guide, the Elizabethan alchemist. Ask him to tell us what was going on. Then, if something was to be found, I would locate and remove it myself, safe in the knowledge that he, Bernard, was still in the warmth and comfort of the pub, away from any possible danger.

  Bernard thought this a good idea. So, picking up a pen, he searched for some notepaper.

  Bugger. I had left my notebook in the car.

  ‘I’ll use the back of these,’ he announced, turning over his written account of the Maria the Jewess dream and the automatic script received the previous night. Waiting for some form of response, he felt he should sketch an aerial view of the church in case he needed to mark a specific spot.

  Bernard fell silent as the Elizabethan alchemist began his message:

  Two they were. During afternoon. Were they the two men Bernard had seen staring up at the silhouetted church in his dream? It seemed so.

  ‘Go round church’, was the guide’s next instruction.

  Taking this to mean he was to perambulate his little sketch of the church, Bernard began to move his right index finger slowly around its exterior walls. It came to a halt at a spot below the middle of the east wall, an obvious place for the Black Alchemist to have left something.

  Marking an X, he intuitively drew a continuous line around the entire church. More words then explained what was going on:

  Placed at east [end of church]. Picture on stone. Church sealed. No entry to church. Energies sealed. Bernard interrupted the communication to provide his own feelings on the situation. ‘Well, I understand this to mean that these two characters have placed a stone—on which is a picture—below the east wall of the church. Apparently, this has sealed off its energies in some way.’

  It would be a simple task, therefore, to go out there, find the inscribed stone and destroy its magical hold over the
church. I could douse it with holy water and remove it from the spot.

  Was it on the surface, or buried?

  ‘On the surface, I reckon.’

  And was it up against the wall, or away from it in the grass

  somewhere?

  He thought again. ‘Away from the wall.’

  Before leaving, I posed a further question, writing, simply:

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Bernard to see what answers came in my absence.

  Rising from the seat, I told him to stay put and await my return. I would be no more than ten minutes. ‘I’ll give you five minutes before sending out a search party,’ he joked, amused as ever by my actions.

  Ten minutes, I told him, as I disappeared from view and walked out into the cold November night.

  34 The Heart of the Quest

  Unlocking the car boot, I took out a torch, camera, some holy water, a notebook, a crucifix and the Indian swordstick, before crossing the busy main road and heading over to the church.

  As I looked up, another firework rocket shot into the moonlit sky and exploded in a galaxy of multi-coloured stars that slowly fell to earth.

  The church green was now buzzing with activity. More than a dozen cars were disgorging their occupants for an evening service inside the church. People milled about greeting friends, laughing, talking and gradually moving towards the entrance door below the stone tower.

  It must have seemed a strange sight to them: a lone figure in tiny wire-framed glasses wielding a swordstick and sporting a collar, tie, and baggy overcoat. Yet all I could do was stroll past them and hope they did not ask any pertinent questions.

  Reaching the churchyard, I moved swiftly across to the building’s east wall before disappearing into the long shadow cast by the towering edifice. Switching on the torch, I scanned the ground at the spot indicated on Bernard’s crude sketch map.

  Several minutes of searching failed to produce any inscribed stone.

  Bernard would be wondering where I was. It was no good—I would have to go back and enlist his help.

  Bernard now received an answer to Andy’s question ‘What’s going on?’, which he’d posed before departing into the night. It read:

  To ensnare. Your energies strong. A wish to control. Beware of a stumble in the dark. Soul can be used after death.

  He was not sure what it meant, but knew instinctively that he and Andy were in grave danger. However, the message was then eclipsed by another, which stated:

  At the tree. Very strong. With this had come the overwhelming impression that, out by the upturned tree stump, a second artefact lay concealed which had to be removed as soon as possible.

  It was an impulse, an urge that could not be ignored, despite what Andy had advised. Anyway, he said he would be ten minutes, and over fifteen had now elapsed.

  So he would have to warn him—tell him what was going on. Finishing off his drink, Bernard slipped on his coat and made for the exit. Walking briskly back across the green, I saw Bernard coming towards me. As he approached, I chastised him lightly for not having remained in The Griffin, although in honesty I was actually quite glad to see him as I had been unable to locate the ‘picture’ stone.

  ‘And there’s something else, out by the tree,’ he announced. ‘I think we’d better see what’s there.’

  Obviously, he wanted to join the search so, a little reluctantly, I accepted his offer. Yet before we went anywhere near the church, or the tree, we were to employ the use of the Cabalistic Cross. Just to make sure he did not get into any trouble out there.

  In a dark alley located just beyond the eastern edge of the churchyard, we came to a halt by an old wrought iron gate and conducted the simple protection visualisation. Once this had been done, we moved swiftly across to the church’s east wall.

  Our eyes followed the torchlight as it illuminated different sections of the grass and concrete below the stone wall.

  Still there was no sign of any inscribed stone.

  ‘Perhaps it was just a mental incantation,’ Bernard concluded, attempting to justify his earlier feeling that a physical artefact might have been left there.

  I didn’t give up, and a minute or so later we found what we were looking for. It was a large rectangular piece of slate, some four inches in length and three inches in width. It was resting on the angled slope of the concrete drainage channel, exactly below the midway point of the east wall. Flicking it over, we saw its ‘picture’.

  Scratched on one of its two faces was an updated Monas encircled by a fat ouroboros snake biting its own tail.

  Bernard moved away as I quickly doused the stone to break its psychic hold over the church’s energies. Taking out the camera, I snapped a few shots of it in situ, before slipping it into my pocket and catching up with Bernard.

  He appeared to be none the worse for the discovery, so we moved onto our next destination.

  49. The slate fixing marker—found beyond the east end of Danbury church—after a soaking of holy water. Within thirty feet of the darkened mound, which indicated the position of the upturned tree stump, Bernard came to a halt and stared. ‘Ah, it’s just there, in front of us,’ he remarked, not having realised how close we had come to the tree without him suffering any kind of adverse reaction.

  Confirming that this was the case, I asked him if it was safe to go any nearer.

  Still he stood and stared. ‘I see her—standing between us and the tree,’ he announced, clearly quite concerned by the sight.

  Who?

  ‘The same woman in the dream—the crone in the black cowled robe.’

  Who? Maria the Jewess? Paphotia?

  ‘No, yes, they’re all the same—they’re all one.’ He paused to listen before turning around with a very worried expression on his face.

  ‘She’s saying “Come, come, come, come, come to me.”’ He paused for a moment to listen to her calling. ‘Now I hear giggling laughter,’ he continued, sensing it was time to put some distance between him and the source of his grave discomfort.

  Stopping on the gravel path close to the southern edge of the churchyard, he spoke again with a note of anxiety in his voice: ‘There’s a deep pulling in my chest. She keeps trying to pull me back to the tree.’

  His apparent torment was confirmed as he began slowly to sink towards the ground, holding his arms across his chest.

  This was getting serious. I had to act fast.

  The Cabalistic Cross was not working, so what could I do?

  A banishment ritual. I would try to banish the spectre’s presence from the churchyard.

  Waving the swordstick around, I used my limited magical capability in an attempt to dissipate the malevolent supernatural form. It was a hastily conducted act that I just hoped would work.

  Running back across to the path where Bernard now lay in a crumpled heap, I found him in great pain, muttering something about ‘You’re disgusting. How could you do that?’

  I stood and stared. It was a statement being directed to the dark female spectre still standing by the tree. My banishment ritual had obviously not worked. But what was disgusting?

  ‘JUST GET RID OF IT,’ he pleaded, the agony clearly showing in his voice. ‘I ... I can’t move … GET IT OUT.’

  Get what out? Where?

  ‘As before … something.’

  The artefact. In the same hole as before, where we had located the flint calling card the previous week. I had to remove it. Dashing back across to the tree stump, I shone the torch into the darkened crevice.

  Oh my God. What I could see stunned even me. It was disgusting.

  What was I to do? There was no way I was going to reach down into the hole and touch that. I needed to think, speak to Bernard, immediately.

  Racing across to the psychic, I found him now in a terrible state, bent double in tortuous pain and looking as if he was fast losing consciousness. He was not going to like what I’d discovered.

  ‘JUST GET RID OF IT,’ he cried, in sheer desperation,
as he slumped even further down on the gravel path.

  Couldn’t he perhaps get up and move out of the churchyard, whilst I dealt with what was in the hollow of the tree?

  Without waiting for an answer, I lifted the psychic onto his feet and pushed him in the general direction of the wrought iron gate marking the entrance to the churchyard.

  Bernard remained on his feet as he staggered like a drunken old man towards safety and I made my way back to the tree stump.

  Shining the torchlight into the deep crack, I looked again at the vile sight. Resting on a ledge, about eighteen inches into the hollow, was a large, blood-soaked heart into which was speared a black dagger, its handle carved into a grinning ape.

  Realising that nobody was ever going to believe this, I took a few pictures of the items in situ. Then, slowly reaching down into the hole, I grabbed hold of the dagger’s carved handle and levered the heart up into the air, trying to make sure it did not fall off and tumble back into the depths of the crevice. Placing them on the ground, I took more photographs.

  Pulling out the holy water, I doused both the dagger and heart.

  What was I to do now? Showing them to Bernard would only send him into further fits of revulsion. No, I would have to hide them in the grass—temporarily at least.

  So where was he? Picking up the dagger, with its bloody heart still impaled on the blade, I walked towards the gate and located a suitable spot behind a grave to conceal the macabre evidence.

  Looking for Bernard, I found him still doubled up and mumbling about terrible pains in his chest. Hoping to alleviate his suffering, I told him I’d removed the offending items, so they should give him no further problems.

  Perhaps we should now leave the vicinity and go back to the pub?

  ‘I can’t,’ he stated, in a low, frightened voice. ‘I ... I can’t move.’

  He sounded like a child who could not face being left alone in the dark. Attempting to act logically, I told him to follow me.