by Robert Irwin
I buy music to match my mood and tell myself who I am each week. Thus my record collection, from Connie Francis onwards, is an archive of emotional development, a storehouse of past loves and depressions preserved, as if in jam jars. More emotional preserves are being added all the time. Twenty years from now, I shall play ‘Strawberry Fields’ and it will all come flooding back to me – Sally blowing that kiss at Melchett, me standing on a corner of Goldhawk Road on a sunny day, the Work of the Lodge still a dark mystery which I had yet to understand.
I arrived at the Lodge a bit late and I had the records with me as I entered Felton’s study. He insisted on examining my purchases. He turned the LPs over with distaste. But when he saw the photograph of the Stones he was transfixed. For fully ten minutes he sat rocking to and fro as he contemplated their image.
‘Natural barbarians … those faces … that simian vigour … and a touch of the reptilian too. Remarkable, really remarkable. No brains of course, just latent energy … ’
I pointed out that Jagger had been to the L.S.E., but this weighed nothing with Felton. As far as he was concerned, he was contemplating beautiful animals. He reluctantly passed the record back and turned his attention to my diary. I interrupted his reading to ask what my name meant. He sighed heavily,
‘A gentleman is a man who knows Latin. Non Omnis Moriar means “I shall not entirely die”.’
I am pleased with my new name, I think. He studied the diary. Then, after a few pages,
‘ “Sally and I are a number again!” he quoted derisively back to me. ‘Setting aside again the ghastly colloquialism of “a number” – by which presumably you mean that she is once more your mistress – the use of the exclamation mark in such a context is hideously vulgar. You are making a statement of fact, and facts need no such punctuational garnish. You may well be excited by being “a number” once more with your young floozie, but you should not expect to convey any of this feeling of yours merely by scattering exclamation marks over your prose like fairy dust. I thought that I had told you to get rid of her.’
‘Well, not in so many words.’
‘In just so many words I am now telling you to get rid of her. Your oath to the Master commits you to obey me also. When do you next see her? Wednesday … that is tomorrow is it not? I do not care whether you tell her before or after entering the cinema, but you will tell her. How you make the break and how you explain it is entirely up to you, but you are not to involve the Lodge in your explanation. Once you have sent her away, we shall take steps to find a replacement for her.’
‘What gives you the right to give me such orders?’
‘You did, Peter. You did. All I am doing is asking you to obey your own will.’
I said nothing and bowed my head.
‘Do cheer up,’ he said. ‘I have arranged a treat for you. I am taking you off to a country-house this weekend. You will enjoy yourself.’
‘But I promised my father that I would go home this weekend and look after my mother. She is very ill.’
‘Your oath takes precedence over your private concerns. For that matter, the healthy and the vigorous take precedence over the sick and the dying.’
‘You should not be forcing me to make such a choice.’
‘There is no choice. Tomorrow you will ring your father and tell him … let’s see … that you have a “work crisis” and consequently that you will be unable to go up to Cambridge this weekend.’
‘I cannot do that.’
Felton does not trouble to reply. He continues to leaf through my diary, looking ostentatiously bored as he does so. Sally’s second little gift to me gives him pause.
‘This crucifix she gave you, are you wearing it?’
I shook my head.
Felton smiled,
‘There is no need to be ashamed of such an emblem. Jesus ranks with Apollonius of Tyana as one of the greatest sorcerers of late antiquity.’
And he returned to correcting my punctuation. Only when he reached the part about Melchett and my expulsion from my digs did he become animated – weirdly so, like electrified jelly.
‘Fate has taken a hand,’ Felton cried. (I refrain from vulgarising his cry with an exclamation mark.) ‘Your accommodation crisis is solved. You can live here in the Lodge. A room will be found somewhere on the second floor. You can live there rent free in exchange for performing certain services around and about the place. It will fall out very well, for this will assist you in your speedy progress along the Path.’
‘I will have to think about it.’
‘You will find that obedience serves you better than thought. Get your things ready and packed. I will make arrangements for you to be moved out of your place on Friday.’
I had told Felton that I would think about it. This was not really true. I had already had an instantaneous think about it and I knew that Horapollo House was not where it was at. All this psycho-esoteric bullying was making me seriously uptight. I thought that I would attend this evening’s path-working – that would cost me nothing – and then split for good. I was not going to give up Sally and my family and friends and move in to this gloomy old pile where no sunlight ever entered. Ancient, muttered mysteries were doing nothing for my mind. The more money I took from Felton the more deeply implicated I would be in whatever creepy thing it was that he wanted me to do for him. There was nothing he could do for me. I was sure of that. Thinking all this was like taking a blast from a Vick’s Inhaler and my head was now much clearer.
The kissing business was as weird as ever and this time there were ominous hints in Felton’s instructions that the mouth is not the only thing that gets kissed if genuinely powerful dark forces are to be aroused.
This evening it was also Felton who was conducting the pathworking. It is the first time that he has done so since I joined the Lodge. This time it was a controlled imaginative sequence based on a narrative found in the Westcar Papyrus, a tale of the Nineteenth Dynasty of the New Kingdom. As usual there is a brief preliminary period of relaxation, during which we lie with eyes closed and we focus on the various parts of our bodies, starting at the extremities, and relax them stage by stage.
Then Felton addresses us,
‘You are over Africa. The Africa you look down upon is as it was three thousand years ago. You descend to the great lake which is the source of the Nile. Along the river, not far from its source, you find a boat equipped with both sails and oars. As soon as you step on board, the boat begins to move. Helped by the current and the wind, it is scudding north and its progress is so astonishingly rapid that you barely have time to marvel as the boat sails on past Elephantine, Thebes, and the Singing Statues of Memon, then Dendera. Finally, your boat reaches its destination, the necropolis of Memphis. Stepping ashore you advance purposefully down the long, stone-flagged avenue, flanked by granite obelisks, heading towards the funerary temple which lies in the shadow of the Pyramid of Wenis and … ’
And Felton continues to narrate in a low monotone, I suppose, but I am no longer conscious of hearing him. I am too far away in old Memphis. I am Setem Khaimwese, a priest of Egypt, and I have come to the necropolis at nightfall in search of the Book of Thoth, possession of which will confer knowledge of the language of the winds, as well as allowing one to enchant the earth and one’s own sleep. This book, which can even be used after death, belongs to the wizard-prince, Neufer-Ka-Ptah, and he is dead.
I have been studying the tombs of the Great Ones, gathering the clues, and so prepared I have no difficulty in locating the entrance to the wizard’s tomb in a store chamber attached to the funerary temple. The descent is steep and I am very afraid of the Night of Nothing, but the prize is greater yet, for it promises the end of fear. Without my being aware of having passed through a door, I find myself in the funerary chamber of the wizard. I raise my taper over the body of Neufer-Ka-Ptah, who lies on a marble slab with his arms folded. His wife, Ahaura, lies on a slab beside him. Canopic jars, containing the couple’s visceral organs, ha
ve been placed below their feet. The Book of Thoth, recognisable by the image of the ibis-headed god painted upon it, lies on the floor between the slabs. I reach down to pick it up, but, as I do so, the wizard and his wife sit bolt upright.
‘Please leave us our book,’ says Neufer-Ka-Ptah.
‘We who are dead have more need of it than you,’ says his wife.
‘It would be sacrilege to take it,’ he adds.
‘I have to take it,’ I reply. ‘It is what I have come for.’ (Dimly I am conscious of other voices beside me, echoing my words.)
‘We shall play for it,’ says the wizard calmly and his wife places a squared board at the foot of the wizard’s slab. I do not want to play, but I must. I play and I lose, but I insist on another game. I lose again. The third game shall be the determinant. However, I lose this one too. No one can win against sorcery. So I shall take the book anyway.
I scoop up the book and I hurry up the steep and narrow passageway. The gibbering of the corpses becomes fainter behind me. By the time I find my way to the Temple precinct of Memphis, it is morning. Baboons look down from the roof of the Temple. A young maiden, Tbubi, approaches and displays her body to me. She invites me to kiss her nipples and this I do. She has been waiting a long time, she says, a very long time, and this body of hers belongs to me and to me only. Unfortunately, there is a condition – and it is a condition that she fears that I cannot fulfil. She turns her back and starts to walk away. I briefly contemplate her waggling hips before following her. What is the condition? She tells me that I must kill my children. My children? She insists and promises that she will give me other children.
‘That is why you must kill your children, O Setem Khaimwese. So that they do not compete with mine.’
I bow my head and follow her to my house. In an upstairs room she hands me a glass of wine and I look down on the dogs chewing on the flesh of my children. She spreads herself out on a bed of ivory and ebony and I lie beside her. She opens her legs, but then, as I ease myself into her, she opens her mouth in a foul-smelling scream. The stink of her breath reminds me of something. Perhaps I am reminded of the smell of the wizard’s wife, for it is certainly her whom I am lying with. Her rib-cage has buckled under the weight of my body and I withdraw from her in holy dread. My wits are confused, but I know that I now have no hope of using the Book of Thoth, for it is closed to the man who has committed the sacrilege of sleeping with a corpse.
Then I hear a voice calling me back, back to the source. No time has passed on this quest. The children are alive and the dogs still hungry. Above the great lake, my spirit begins to rise and draw away from Africa, so as to answer the summons of a voice from another time. Back in the Meditation Hall, there is, as usual, time for us to lie quiet and reflect on the significance of our pathworking. I lie there quiet and afraid. I am certain that tonight’s exercise was directed at me and only at me. Although the seductive maiden, Tbubi, had dark hair, I can see that she is an earlier incarnation of Sally. As in ancient Egypt, so in modern London. Sally is a seduction on the path, sent to prise the book of secret knowledge out of my hands. Although the kisses of yesterday morning were sweet, it is certain that, in time, Sally’s breath will carry the stink of carrion, for that is what is entailed in ordinary mortality. Those who cannot break free from the cycle of birth and death are condemned to rot. Now that I knew what it was like to embrace a corpse, I was more than ever afraid of death. I was also afraid of Felton and his power to take me where I did not want to go.
The pathworking had finished earlier than usual. I shakily got to my feet and started to follow the others hurrying out of the Hall, only Felton barred my way with a ceremonial flail. Behind him stood Granville and Granville was clutching a copy of Penthouse. What was going on? I must have looked apprehensive. Seeing this, Felton smiled benignly,
‘I said that the Lodge would find you a new girl and it will. There is no time to lose.’
Granville followed Felton in mugging a reassuring smile. They insisted that I return with them to Felton’s study. Felton spoke.
‘A girl, but not any girl. A consort fit for a future Adept of High Magick. Where shall such a girl be found and what is her name? There are so very many girls. Place your ear to the ground and it may be that you shall hear the clacking of their heels on the pavements of the world’s cities. Their pretty shoes all drum out messages of seduction. Yet there is one pair of heels which beats out a tattoo which is destined to be heard by one man and one man only. There is one particular girl, preserved by destiny as a virgin, whose steps take her, as if sleepwalking, towards your bed. One girl among so many millions. We shall find her for you, Peter. Do not doubt it.’
Felton’s monotonously intoned, crazy speech increased my fear. Granville, though, was more matter-of-fact. Having opened the copy of Penthouse and pressed it flat on Felton’s desk, he beckoned me over.
‘Here it is. The latest thing. A computer-dating form. If you fill it in now, it will catch the first post tomorrow morning.’
The double-page advertisement spread in the middle of the magazine consisted of a long series of questions with boxes to tick, interspersed with matchbox-sized photographs of happy couples who had already found happiness through computer-dating. Granville pressed me into the chair and put a pen in my hand. My first thought was that I was to tick the boxes I chose, thus, stroke by stroke, shaping my perfect woman, a bit like Pygmalion. I was swiftly put right about this. I was to tick the boxes they chose.
‘It is most important that she be a Scorpio,’ said Felton. ‘And even more vital that she be a virgin.’
Box by box, under their guidance, my perfect consort was constructed. She will be a virgin Caucasian, tall with long dark hair, aged about twenty. She lives in London. She will be looking for love or marriage rather than friendship. She is not close to her family. She reads avidly, is politically indifferent, but well-groomed. She is serious, shy and beautiful. Her interests include wining and dining, theatre, cinema and astrology. I wanted rock music to be included, but Felton and Granville were adamant that she should only care about classical stuff.
‘She will be nothing like Sally,’ said Felton.
‘It must be someone you have never met before,’ explained Granville unhelpfully.
‘And she must be a virgin,’ Felton reiterated. ‘Eventually you will bring her to the Lodge and we will welcome her as your consort.’
Felton, still in his Egyptian priest’s robes, performed the ritual of the Nine Barbarous Names over the completed form,
‘I am Ankh-F-N-Khonsu, thy Prophet, unto Who, Thou didst commit thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of Khem. Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which nourisheth all created life … ’
And while Felton stood there in hieratic pose and continued to invoke the Borneless One, I sat at his desk, wondering why was I going along with all this craziness. I had had it in my mind for some time that if there was even the shadow of a chance that the magical version of the world was the right one, then the prizes would be incalculable. But now I also sensed that the penalties for leaving the Path or failing on the Path were unthinkably nasty. (Visions of the banister studded with razor blades and of the slug condemned to eternal life flitted through my mind.) And yet curiosity competed with fear. I was terribly interested to see what would happen next. Among other things, I find it hard to imagine how I am going to strike up a relationship with a virginal lover of classical music and then, having done so, induct her into the path of sorcery. I picture myself a Hellfire seducer in an eighteenth-century novel whispering into her innocent ear. It would be good if my blind date turned out to be a Scientologist, but I doubt if I shall be so lucky.
Granville addressed the envelope and said that he would post it off straight away. Then he added that he would be sending one of his men round with the shop’s van to move my stuff from Notting Hill to the Lodge on Friday afternoon. So I have a new name and very soon a new address and a new girlfriend too. At this rate the
old Peter, the Peter who began this diary, will have vanished in a matter of weeks.
Come to think of it, Ron was not at the pathworking. He is not someone I am going to miss.
Wednesday, May 31
It is sunny but unreasonably cold for May. I did a session on the playground wall, but I was not really concentrating. I kept thinking about the previous evening. Belatedly it occurs to me that last night’s pathworking might relate in some way to the Cairo Working which the Master and Felton performed in Egypt so many years ago.
I spent most of the afternoon in my pad, throwing some stuff away and putting the rest in cardboard boxes cadged from the grocer round the corner. I rang Dad and told him that I was moving. I lied to him and told him that the move was taking place at the weekend. He said nothing, except that my new address sounded rather grand, but he sounded disappointed. He will expect me the following weekend.
I met Sally under the statue of Eros. I was going to tell her before we went into the cinema and saw Elvira Madigan, but I chickened out. So I spent the next hour and a half watching a sequence of brightly coloured images: period uniforms, lacy dresses, pretty faces, blossoms, and twirling parasols with no idea of what connected them all, for I was rehearsing my lines. Sally was unusually clingy and she nestled up against me with her head on my shoulder.
We practically never go to pubs. Sally does not like the noise and darkness, whereas I am not very fond of the taste of beer. But this time I insisted. In the pub, she tried to talk about the film, unfazed by the fact that I was incapable of making any coherent comment about what had been going on in it. But she kept trying. There was really something rather frantic in her determination to talk about Swedish films.
