Was this happening now, or was it something to come?
‘To come, I should think.’ He now glanced soulfully into nowhere, as I attempted to record his words with a pocket tape recorder.
‘Whatever they’re doing,’ he continued, ‘it’s associated with fire, and burning. I also see gargoyle-like creatures flapping around, in the air.’
It made a change from scavenger birds.
‘Not quite the same,’ he responded, still staring into nowhere. ‘A bit chaotic, really … A collapse of a local energy matrix, bringing forth other things.’ He emphasised those last words. ‘Black flappy things. Going round in circles. I feel I want to kick them out of the way, get rid of them.’
When might this happen?
‘Not sure … soon,’ was all he would say.
Is it at night?
‘Night, yes. No, it’s not. It’s sunset. It’s getting dark, like now—the sun seems to be behind the mound.’
What else could he see?
‘It’s like he’s on the mound, and I’m there. I can even see the turned up cuffs of his robe, and the wind ruffling the thick drapery. But somehow he is here too, in the churchyard, standing over there, between the gap in the hedgerow.’
What here? In the churchyard? The Black Alchemist?
‘Yes, but he can’t come any closer, the gateway is protected.’ Protected? By whom?
‘I see a woman in blue, a nun, I think, who gives the name “Anne”,’ he said, turning his gaze to the gap between the hedgerow. ‘I want to go over there, to that gateway.’ He paused for a moment, before adding: ‘I don’t know why I should see this, but he seems to be holding a black child.’
A real black child?
‘Either that, or it’s a doll of some kind.’
And BA’s holding this?
But Bernard did not respond. He just continued to stare, before saying: ‘I’m going across to there. Are you coming?’
I advised caution, but he was already walking across to the gap, which he approached slowly with his hands out in front of him, as if he was about to hit an invisible barrier of some sort.
Finally, he came to a halt just as he reached the opening. ‘He’s right before me,’ he revealed, a little too calmly for my liking. ‘I’m going to step forward now,’ which he did, taking a single pace.
The gap in the hedgerow served as an entrance into the churchyard beyond which was a footpath, along which a woman out walking her dog now approached. Our actions were going to look suspicious, so all I could do was smile as our eyes met.
As she passed, the woman gave Bernard—who was now stationary on the path, his eyes closed and his hands out in front of him—an odd look. He seemed totally oblivious to her presence.
I breathed a sigh of relief as she continued on, undeterred by our madness.
Some part of Bernard was now locked in mind with their adversary in a manner that made him feel uncomfortable. This is not what he wanted any more.
He just wanted to be rid of the man, and his silly games. Yet he could not deny his presence now, and was compelled by what was going on.
Before him was the Black Alchemist, standing on the Paradise Mound. He seemed to be behind a protective force field, put in place by someone else—a nun, apparently, named Anne.
The Black Alchemist, attired in a thick cowled robe, held in his arms a motionless child as black as coal. With this powerful image came fleeting glimpses of his world.
Bernard could see fires, at night, lots of them, burning in woods, some familiar, others not. Many were sites he’d glimpsed before in connection with the activities of this man. All were being used once more.
He could see people in robes, on hills, walking in slow procession. He could see him and her, BSA, together, preparing for something that was to come.
Cowled figures in black now stood in a circle on the mound, waiting silently for the correct moment.
At the centre of the assembled party, he stood, on the mound’s summit, his head higher than theirs. In his arms was the child—black, yes, but not because of its skin. It had been charred black by fire. The sight reviled Bernard, and he attempted immediately to banish what was before him. But it was no good.
New dark images began downloading faster and faster into his brain. He had to stop it, now, and so fought hard to repel the influx and sever the link with the Black Alchemist.
He did what he could until finally the fires and darkness vanished, just as everything went white.
Bernard was walking through abbey cloisters, the sun shining brightly overhead, bathing everything in radiant white light. It was the closest sense of heaven he had ever felt.
So was he dead? It felt like death, but something inside told him this was something else, a state equally as real.
Before him was an extensive garden bordered by tall stone walls, within which was a nun dressed in blue and white. She was bent over, tending rows of flowers that shone brighter than any he had ever seen before.
Sensing Bernard’s presence, the holy woman rose slowly and turned towards him, her hands outstretched for him to take. As they linked, he felt an overwhelming sense of grace and beauty emanating from her very soul. She seemed to embody all that was good in the world.
‘Peace will reign,’ she told him, in a gentle, melodic voice, as he gradually lost consciousness.
‘Bernard, Bernard,’ I said calmly, as I attempted to pull the psychic out of his trance-like state, achieved even though he stood upright, his hands held out before him.
I did not touch him, for he showed no signs of obvious distress. It was the length of time he had been like this that worried me. He had been out cold for what seemed like an eternity.
Then, quite suddenly, he opened his eyes and looked towards me.
So where had he been? Had he linked in mind with the Black Alchemist?
Bernard remained silent for a minute or so, as he tried to regain his composure. Then finally, as he took out and lit a cigarette, he said: ‘Yes, we linked in minds. I saw what he saw. I saw what was to come. There were fires, lots of them in woods, dotted about all over the place. Then I saw the same figures on the mound, and him standing in the middle.’
What happened after that?
‘I got rid of him,’ he boasted, with a smile. ‘Then everything went white, and I saw this nun in some kind of abbey garden.’ He thought about this for a moment, as if searching his mind for further clues. ‘What’s at “Wilton”? Do you know of a place called “Wilton”?’
It’s in Wiltshire, and there was a Benedictine abbey and nunnery there until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the sixteenth century.
‘I think that’s where I was, fleetingly, in the company of this nun.’
Who was she?
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, a little confused. ‘I just got the name “Anne”, but whether that was her name, or not, I’m not sure.’
So why was all this going on now, tonight?
‘Something’s brewing, I suppose.’
Inside The Griffin’s lounge bar, Bernard and I sat down at a table by the window, drinks in front of us. Together, we attempted to understand what was happening in the world of the Black Alchemist.
Following months of relative calm, there had been much speculation recently about the whole BA affair. In recent days a number of individuals known to me had all experienced dreams and visions suggesting the Black Alchemist was on the move again. Bernard knew nothing of this, as he wasn’t really interested.
So what he had revealed out there in the churchyard strongly indicated these experiences were real.
That Bernard had seen fires burning in woods and on hills made sense, for today was 1st August, the ancient Celtic fire festival of Lugnasadh, adopted by Christianity as the harvest feast of Lammas. Moreover, I found it intriguing that 29th July, just three days earlier, had been the feast of St Anne, usually identified as Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary. Yet in Britain she is a dusky saint, a Christianisatio
n of an ancient goddess, whose darkest form is that of Black Annis. It was her piercing scream that Carole Young had most likely heard above the hurricane-force winds at the height of the Great Storm.
More important, or should I say disconcerting, was Bernard’s vision of the Black Alchemist holding what appeared to be a black baby on Eastbourne’s Paradise Mound. What the hell was all that about?
‘It could be just a doll,’ he was quick to point out, just as a waitress placed down plates of food before a mature couple sitting behind us. She returned to give them cutlery and condiments. The pub had changed a lot since we first started coming here in 1984. It was now primarily a food orientated establishment, with one half of the building being used solely as a dining area, and the other a bar where meals were served all day.
‘All I know is that it was purposely charred with fire, possibly even on the mound itself in some kind of ritual. It’s as if he’s preparing it for something.’
Preparing it for something.
Suddenly, my heart started racing as I recalled the chilling message Bernard had received almost exactly nine months earlier concerning the conception of some kind of unholy child, gestating in the ‘womb’ of the foul virgin Paphotia, aka Maria the Jewess. I tried to remember the words of the corrupt priest Comarius:
The new child will come, and blackness will rise up and encircle it. Darkness will be his triumph and his dominion.
As bizarre and macabre as all this seemed, the Black Alchemist somehow saw this unborn child as gestating in the ground, somewhere beneath the charred earth out by the upturned tree stump in Danbury churchyard.
The stump itself had now been removed and the ground levelled for grass to grow. For a while, a shoot from the same horse chestnut tree had grown on the spot, but this was quickly destroyed. Cut, most probably, by the blades of a motor mower.
I thought carefully for a moment, using a notepad to make some quick calculations.
Oh my God, this was not good. ‘What’s that?’ Bernard asked, genuinely intrigued by my reaction.
The human gestation period is approximately 280 days, meaning that if the Black Alchemist’s unholy child was thought to have been ‘conceived’ around 5th November 1987, i.e. when BA struck Danbury churchyard in the wake of the Great Storm, its assumed ‘birth’ could be expected sometime around 8th August.
‘That’s just a few days away,’ Bernard pointed out.
Exactly!
Something was definitely on. Everything pointed towards a culmination date of Monday, 8th August, which in numerical terms could be written 8.8.8, the eight-fold symbolism resonating still further in the fact it was the 88th year of the century.
Everyone knows about the mystical significance of 666, the number of the beast of Revelation. The number 888 possesses a similar potency, signifying, in alchemy at least, the number of completion of the great work. More significantly, according to the numerological system of a second-century Gnostic named Markos the name of Christ has a value of 888.
I realised something else as well. Traditionally, the period of time between the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin and the birth of Christ is said to have been 276 days, which I quickly worked out was the exact number of days between 5th November last year and 7th August this year. Perhaps the Black Alchemist was inverting the whole concept of the Virgin Birth in order to make this the same amount of time between the conception and birth of an antichrist.
If correct, then Danbury’s ‘womb’, i.e. the hollow beneath the upturned tree, was seen to have been ‘impregnated’ when the heart and dagger were left there on 5th November, around the time of the full moon that evening. It therefore implied that the unholy ‘birth’ would take sometime after sunset on 7th August, the point of commencement of 8th August (in occult terms a day starts at sun down and not at midnight).
Bernard listened to all this with some concern on his face. ‘All I feel,’ he began, ‘is that when all this takes place, it will involve a number of different groups, many not even known to each other. Some not even in this country.
‘There will be fires lit in woods and elsewhere, and the combined energy of all these activities will be channelled towards one place.’
What place?
‘On the Sussex Downs, somewhere,’ was all he could say. ‘Where exactly, I don’t know.’
Was it the mound?
‘Could be,’ he replied, ‘we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?’
Perhaps he might give it some thought on a psychic level.
He grinned: ‘We’ll see. As I’ve told you, I want to stay away from anything psychic to do with matey. I don’t need the hassle. If I put out that I don’t want anything more to do with him, then he’ll leave me alone. It’s that simple.’
I understood his sentiment, but really needed his help on this one. Otherwise we were not going to know what was going on out there, and this could prove disastrous for all of us.
‘As I said, we’ll see.’
44 Child of Fire
Thursday, 4th August. Sitting at the table in the dining room, Bernard pulled across a notepad and pen. Andy had asked him to see what more he could pick up concerning the intended activities of the Black Alchemist. He had been putting it off, fearing the possible consequences. Yet it seemed important. So he would open up his mind. Try and see what was going on out there.
Easily, Bernard found himself looking at the now familiar sight of Eastbourne’s Paradise Mound, a site apparently favoured by their adversary. Although it was on open land, behind it lay dense woodland, where he felt chaotic ritual activity had taken place in the past.
Scanning the site Bernard could not sense anyone’s presence, nefarious or otherwise, which was a relief, he decided. Comforted by this thought, he continued to sweep the area psychically to see if he could pick up any residual energies left behind by earlier ritualistic activity at the site.
As he attempted this, Bernard’s thoughts were pulled towards another location—one not far away. A silhouetted figure came into view standing within a clearing inside a dense wood.
Although a floppy cowl hid the face, he sensed it was a woman, working alone. In front of her was a crater-like pit some three to four paces across. Into this she offered a ritual libation in the form of a thick golden liquid, poured from a small metal bowl.
It took very little time for Bernard to realise this was BSA, the Black Alchemist’s female accomplice. Like him, she seemed to be working towards some kind of culmination of everything they had been attempting to achieve over the past year or so.
Further images now flashed through his mind. He saw a long spear or lance suspended in midair, its tip point downwards. It seemed to be revolving slowly, enabling him to see it was made of metal and attached to a wooden shaft.
‘Enhance birth,’ were the first clear words he heard. They came not from her, but from a stern male voice, that seemed familiar indeed. It was him, he was sure of it. Accompanying this image was the distinct impression of ‘white fire’, and a sense of it being connected with alchemy once more. More ominously he felt this was the same ‘white fire’ that had scorched the ‘black child’ seen earlier in the hands of the Black Alchemist.
He continued to see her silhouetted form in the darkened clearing before the peculiar imagery started to fade. In its place came further words from the same male voice, although none could be made out clearly as everything began to recede into nothing, prompting him to open his eyes.
Where was this sunken pit where BSA had made her ritual libation?
The woods in question exuded an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and desolation. He sensed they had suffered badly during the previous year’s hurricane.
The link made him recall the supernatural she-wolf Lykaina, the form of Hekate experienced by so many individuals on the night of the Great Storm. There was a link somehow with what he could see taking place in the clearing. He felt sure of it.
Bernard sensed she was up to no good. The though
t concerned him, and he knew he would have to speak with Andy about this as soon as possible.
Friday, 5th August. ‘I saw a woman in black about to pour a bowl of golden liquid into a purposely dug pit in a secluded clearing,’ Bernard revealed over the telephone as I listened intently.
‘I think it’s her again—she’s on the move.’ So much did I want to write down Bernard’s words that on turning around to grab pen and paper, I tripped over the phone wire, which was torn from the wall socket, causing both me and the heavy phone to crash to the ground!
After failing to repair the damage, I gave up, left the house and found a phone box from which to call Bernard back.
After explaining what had just happened, he laughed with me before repeating his account of the remote viewing exercise the previous night.
What I found interesting was that Richard Davey, a young guy who worked with Caroline Wise at the offices of Psychic News, had experienced a very similar dream just a few days earlier.
Overnight on Wednesday, 27th July, he had dreamt of a woman in a black cowled robe pouring a golden liquid into a sunken pit located in a woodland clearing. The only difference between the two accounts was that in Bernard’s case she had poured the liquid from a metal bowl, while Richard felt sure it was a tall jug.
The same night Richard Davey experienced his strange dream, Toyne Newton—the author of a book on the mysteries of Clapham Wood entitled The Demonic Connection (Blandford Press, 1987)—had experienced a very disturbing nightmare. He was in a long corridor being approached by a tall, cowled figure with a long black baton raised above his head. It was brought down towards Toyne’s head, and when just inches away from his scalp the spectral figure had simply vanished.
The dream sequence had repeated twice more, with the baton coming closer to Toyne’s scalp each time. Eventually he awoke in a hot sweat, convinced the black-robed figure was the Black Alchemist, the first time he had ever dreamt of the man.
Others around me in recent days had also experienced a plethora of dreams and visions, which they believed were linked to the Black Alchemist in some manner. One girl known to me had seen a tumulus in front of a wood. On its summit had stood a group of black-robed figures. A mysterious fire burned fiercely behind them. She sensed the scene was connected in some way with the Black Alchemist.
The Black Alchemist: A Terrifying True Story Page 31
