by Dion Fortune
I switched on the lights and entered the great hall, feeling rather shaken. It was the fog, I think, that had made the experience so alarming. I was, in fact, much more upset than I had any reason to be, for after all, the man had not been at all formidable at close quarters. Determined to get the taste of the business out of my mouth, I went up the long flights of narrow stairs to my temple up under the lantern. The lamp burnt dimly; I renewed the wick and lay down on the couch to meditate. The astral temple built up vividly and without any effort on my part; there was more power about than I had ever known before, and I saw, clearly as if it were a physical presence, the sacrificial priest lying face downwards on the floor with outspread arms in front of the curtain that shrouded the Holy of Holies.
He had a right to be there, and no banishing of mine could dislodge him, even if I had chosen to do one. I was not pleased by his presence, for that night in particular I wanted the temple to myself, but I had to put up with it. I went up to the throne and took my seat without saluting him, and he too ignored my presence, even if he were aware of it.
I did my best to gather my thoughts together, for I was profoundly disturbed—most unreasonably so, I thought, and the presence of the sacrificial priest was a distraction. I wanted to be rid of him, but there came to me a very strong feeling that I must take no steps to banish him, for he was definitely part of what was afoot. This pleased me even less, for I had the instinctive aversion of the regular priesthood for the sacrificial priests, who are sacerdotal outcasts, belonging to an epoch that has passed away, and only the very advanced members of the priesthood knew their real rôle and significance.
So I accepted the silent presence of the outcast man, and between us there presently began to be established a rapport, a feeling of comradeship, and I disliked his presence less. Then suddenly he rose and came across the temple towards me, and kneeling down at my feet, put his head on my knee in an attitude of utter submission and abandonment. He seemed like a man who was surrendering his selfrespect. I laid my hand on the sensitive spot on the nape of the neck and blessed him, and as I did so, I saw that he had greying red hair and was none other than the man I had just turned from my door!
But I had hardly touched him before he was on his feet again and had disappeared like a flash down the stairway leading to the Black Temple. I followed him instantly for I saw that he was insecure in his psychic projection, and what would happen to him if he got into the Temple of the Black Isis and failed to keep his concentration did not bear thinking about. We went down the long gallery beside the water, far too fast, and I found myself in the Black Temple. The man was already there, clasping the great knees of Black Isis in an agony of prayer. At all costs he must be got back into his body again. This would never do; the Black Isis is a terrific force, and how did he come to know his way into Her Temple? I hesitated to make the banishing pentagrams that would break the vision and force him back off the astral plane. Had he the right to be there since he was able to pass the seals I had set on my place of working and come and go apparently at will, or was the fault with me? Had that lurking stranger so shaken my nerve that my own mind-wandering caused his image to be mingled with my vision? I did not know; the vision was out of control, and there was nothing to do but break it.
I sat up on the black couch, badly shaken. It seemed to me that my psychism had become inextricably tangled with my sub-conscious content. I had come up here, to this sealed and consecrated place, for the express purpose of putting the stranger out of my mind, and here he was, part of the vision. I did not like it at all.
I got off the couch, did the circumambulations and banishings again, got the incense going afresh till its clouds filled the whole room to suffocation, and lay down once more on the couch, determined to spend a night of meditation and vigil till I got the whole problem clear and cleared up.
Great Isis built up, the terrible Black Isis, the source of all power, who seldom comes, and only at the great moments. I am used to Her power and received it fearlessly, knowing that in a few seconds She would change into Her beautiful aspect, which is so much more beautiful than anything that can be built under the symbolism of the White Isis, who is always liable to change over into the Black Isis if much power is brought through Her. Therefore we who have knowledge work with the Black Isis and transmute Her.
This I knew, was the big thing, the thing for which I had waited; though why it had delayed so long, and why it had come now, I did not know. Then it suddenly occurred to me that there was a kind of pattern running through my slowly formulating work which I had not observed before. It is well known to those who deal with the hidden side of things that such patterns exist, they are, in fact, caused by the invisible forces with which we work, and when these have been got in hand and are being directed by a planning will, the pattern appears. I knew, therefore, that if I could discern the plan of the pattern, all would be clear. There is a central thread that runs through all these things; find that, and you have the clue.
I know how to look for this thread—one seeks that which recurs and keeps on recurring. In the present instance there was one recurring factor, and one only—the man with the red hair. Like it or not, I had to accept it. I had sought my place of working in vain until I met him face to face—and very nearly offered him up as a sacrifice—and then, after one glance from his angry green-grey eyes, I had gone straight to it. Then I had entered my home and found myself unable to settle down, and had gone out beside the river, and the same man, if it were the same man, had rested his hands on his window-sill and stared at me across the water. It might have been that I was visible to him, for I was wearing a white linen dress against a dark background and the last light was on me; anyway, from that moment I entered into peaceful possession of my new home and the power began to build up. Then, walking behind me on the Embankment, he managed to enter into my dream; but I would not look over my shoulder at this intrusive stranger, and so nothing came through to the physical plane, for it seemed as if that could only happen when eye met eye, and I remembered how all those who work with the unseen forces attach great importance to the glance of the eye.
Finally, in that night of fog he drew close to me, entered my house, met me face to face—and I turned him away like a stray dog.
I remembered vividly the way in which he went—bewildered, confused, ashamed. No, that man knew nothing—nothing consciously, at any rate. But there are more levels of the mind than the conscious one, and I knew that there was both knowledge and power lying latent in him. This was no ordinary man, even so far as the mundane plane was concerned. That fine head and those beautiful hands told me that. Who he was, what he was, I did not know, but that he was “somebody” I knew for certain. This pleased me, for I like achievement.
I wondered, too, how far he knew that there was something afoot. Was I mingling with his dreams even as he was with mine? Did he identify me with the woman who had so nearly run him down and made a casualty of him? If so, his first impressions must have been just as unfavourable as my own. He had thought me a fool, that was obvious; in fact he had said as much; moreover I judged he was one of those men who disapprove of make-up, and I had that day been using coral lipstick and cardinal nail lacquer; my right hand was ungloved, for I was wearing a garnet marquise ring on my forefinger over which no glove would go, and he had had a good view of it, resting on the steering-wheel, as he had laid hold of the door of my car and given me a piece of his mind. Yes, I certainly must have startled the gentleman on every plane of his being!
Then there was the last scene of all—and I wondered whether it was indeed the end of this strange eventful history—the scene within my doorway in the dark, when I flashed my torch in his face and drove him forth, ashamed and disgraced. It would certainly be the last scene of all, and end of the play, unless there were indeed an underlying bond to bind us one to the other, for no man would risk the renewal of such an experience. There would be no more shadowing on the Embankment, I was perfectly certain; i
n fact the man would run a mile at the sight of me. How, in view of all this, could I make any sort of contact with him, or enter into any sort of rational relationship, let alone explain to him what was afoot and induct him into the part he had to play?
There was only one way I could do it, I knew that; only one way that was safe and right—the true way of the Tradition—I must pick him up psychically on the astral, and let matters work out in their own way on the physical plane. Then I should know that I was on the right track and had made no mistake in my chosen priest. I must sit still and wait—a year—five years—it did not matter; in the end, if he were the chosen man, he would come. The call had to come through to him from the inner planes; it had to work through from his inner consciousness to his outer consciousness and could not be forced; he had to realise it for himself, and God only knew against what resistances of prejudice, convention, preconceived opinions, and even downright fear it would have to prevail, for people are often afraid of Isis.
Very well, I thought, we will pursue the age-old policy—on the outer plane, passivity: on the inner plane—Come!
So I called my priest to me on the inner planes, and on the inner planes he came. He was the sacrificial priest beyond any question. I wondered what history lay behind him and what expiation lay ahead. He came, and he was simply all to pieces. I felt very sorry for that man. He had reached the point when he was at the end of his tether. He was certainly not a man to thank anybody for sympathy, but he was at the end of his tether this man, and he knew it, and I knew it. Unless something were done for him, he would break up completely. Men of his type are like that if their shell is once penetrated.
So I projected by means of the astral projection which takes out so much of the etheric that it is visible even to the non-psychic. It is a dangerous thing to do, especially over water, for water absorbs astral emanations. I projected my mind, clothed in the body of light, to that room across the river I had once seen lit up and crossed and re-crossed by a restless shadow.
Yes, I had not been misled. There was my man right enough; nor had I been mistaken as to his condition.
“This must be coped with,” I said to myself, “or I shall not only lose my priest, but hurt and injure this man very badly.”
So I set to work, with my knowledge and with my power, I, the priestess of Isis. For my own sake I would not have done it; nor do I think I would even have done it for his sake, for in those days he was nothing to me; but I did it for the sake of Isis because She needed him for Her work.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I will tell what I did, putting my cards on the table, for it shows how we use the Door Without a Key to escape the Lord of This World, who is Moloch, and take refuge in the Secret Kingdom, which is the dark side of the Moon, the side She turns away from earth.
The Door Without a Key is the Door of Dreams; it is the door by which the sensitive escape into insanity when life is too hard for them, and artists use it as a window in a watch-tower. Psychologists call it a psychological mechanism; magicians call it magic, and the man in the street calls it illusion or charlatanry according to taste. It does not matter to me what it is called, for it is effectual.
I made the astral projection by the usual method; that is to say, I pictured myself as standing six feet in front of myself and then transferred my consciousness to the simulacrum thus created by my imagination and looked at the room through its eyes. Then I visualised the face of the man with the greying red hair, and imagined myself speaking to him. The magic worked. I had the sensation of the descent of a swift lift, which always characterises the change of level of consciousness; all awareness of my physical surroundings faded, and I seemed to be in a strange room; a shabby, untidy, badly lit and ill-tended room, crammed with books and papers in utter disorder. A fire of cheap dull coal smouldered in an old-fashioned grate from which no one had swept the cinders for the last twelve hours. Above it, in the centre of the cluttered mantelpiece, was the photograph of a girl in the fashions of twenty years ago. A girl with a pretty face, foolish eyes and stubborn mouth. If that were the wife, one could understand why the man lived apart from her. The pretty face had caught him; and though she had not had the intelligence to understand life, she had had sufficient strength of will to give effect to her misunderstandings.
The only thing to do with such a woman was to desert her.
Among the débris of a meal a man was working at his papers, concentrating on them. Under such conditions telepathy is impossible. I could read him, however, and knew why he was concentrating with such determined intensity. I knew, too, that despite his efforts, my image kept rising over the horizon of his consciousness, for I kept on feeling my own sense of the reality of the vision suddenly intensify for a second.
“He cannot keep this up for very long,” I said to myself. “Between sleeping and waking I will be able to come through to him.”
But neither could I keep up the astral projection for very long, and I had to withdraw my consciousness into my physical body and rest for a while before undertaking once more the risky astral journey over water.
Late at night I made the attempt again. As I expected, the man's willpower was failing him. One cannot drive oneself as he was trying to drive himself, by sheer brute force, clean against nature. It cannot be done; and nature, as was to be expected, had risen and rent him in return for so much mishandling.
What was I to do with this man? I hate domination. It is not only all wrong, but quite useless, the inevitable reaction destroying all that has been built. But this was an emergency operation. Something had to be done, and done quickly, for there is a point beyond which the will cannot drive the temperament without damaging it irreparably.
There was but one thing I could do—dominate his will as a hypnotist dominates it and make him see things as I saw them. The risk and responsibility appalled me, but it had to be done if he were not to go under. So I did it—out of compassion and for no other reason.
I made him see me. I impressed my image upon his whirling mind till, torn by emotion as he was, he saw me—and I had the happiness of seeing him gradually grow calm and steady where before he had been threshing himself to pieces. Then, his resistance being lowered on the threshold of sleep, I did what vampires do, and it may be said I am a vampire to do it—I drew off from that man his seething, tormenting vitality till the pressure dropped lower and lower, down to the threshold of depletion. Then I left him asleep, sleeping himself back to normal. He had had a visit from a succubus; whether his imagination presented me to him as fair or foul, I did not know; it would be according to what was really in his heart, apart from all built-up inhibitions.
I returned across the water to my temple; that dangerous journey across running water which absorbs and carries away magnetism and may break up the projection. In my temple, from which the astral forms we build with so much care are never banished, I laid my two hands on the altar and faced the Moon-symbol that hung upon the mirror that is a door-way to another plane, and in the mirror I saw my own reflection with the image of the Great One behind me, and to that shadowy form, built up by the mind, I surrendered the vital force that I had drawn into myself.
I saw Her build up and grow bright, and Her outlines become clear and tangible—the astral form was taking on etheric substance—soon one would have a materialisation.
But that was not what was wanted. Presently, having surrendered to Her my vitality, I felt a return flow begin—Isis was giving of Her magnetism to me now, and I felt myself grow vital, and young, and dynamic, and knew that in me was Her image reflected; knew too, with a painfully clear realisation, that in dealing thus with the man across the water, I had made a link with him that would not easily be broken, and that to him from henceforth I should be Isis. That was a responsibility I had to take and dare not refuse. I knew, too, that I must now take the bold step of seeking him on the physical plane, and turned over in my mind how it could be done.
To cross the bridge and ring his door-b
ell was not feasible, but that did not trouble me unduly; when there is a link established on the inner planes, it works upon the outer with the minimum of human enterprise. All one has to do is to grasp opportunity as it goes by on the wind. Sometimes it is so tenuous that it can hardly be seen, but it suffices.
I closed down my temple and went to bed. In the dreams that came on the threshold of sleep I saw again the scene at my door when I turned a man away into the fog. It seemed to me that I went after him, trying to find him, entirely forgetful of the fact that he should not follow women in the streets.
I was intensely sorry for him. I knew how ashamed he was, and I wanted to find him and tell him that I had the understanding to know what had happened, and did not place the ordinary interpretation on the incident, and that, despite the unconventional manner of our acquaintance, a bond of sympathy had been forged between us.
It seemed to me that I was in psychic touch with him, and that he, on his side, was visualising me, though under what form of wish fulfilment he represented me to himself I did not know; but I could feel that “virtue had gone out from me” and that there was a psychic flow between us. Of this I was glad, for I had a strong urge to help that man if it were in my power, for I felt I understood him and his twisted nature.
In the morning he was still “on the line,” and I had an intuitive feeling that he was a happier and calmer man than he had been for a long time; and then, suddenly, almost with the physical ear, I heard his voice crying out as if he had touched hot iron.
It startled and shook me like a blow on the head. As best I could I concentrated on him and coped with him till I felt him quiet down; but the experience left me shaken and upset, and all through the morning and the rest of the afternoon I kept a psychic hand on him for fear of what would happen next.
