by Paulo Coelho
“I didn’t know whether it was enough or not, but I said that he seemed to me to be both arrogant and egotistical. He replied: ‘Possibly. But all you will achieve is to repeat what has been done since man was man—keeping things organized.’
“‘But the world has progressed,’ I said. He asked if I knew any history. Of course I did. He asked another question: ‘Thousands of years ago, weren’t we capable of building enormous structures like the pyramids? Weren’t we capable of worshiping gods, weaving, making fire, finding lovers and wives, sending written messages? Of course we were. But although we’ve succeeded in replacing slaves with wage slaves, all the advances we’ve made have been in the field of science. Human beings are still asking the same questions as their ancestors. In short, they haven’t evolved at all.’ At that point, I understood that the person asking me these questions was someone sent from heaven, an angel, a protector.”
“Why do you call him a protector?”
“Because he told me that there were two traditions, one that makes us repeat the same thing for centuries at a time, and another that opens the door into the unknown. However, the second tradition is difficult, uncomfortable, and dangerous, and if it attracted too many followers, it would end up destroying the society which, following the example of the ants, took so long to build. And so the second tradition went underground and has only managed to survive over so many centuries because its followers created a secret language of signs.”
“Did you ask more questions?”
“Of course I did, because, although I’d denied it, he knew I was dissatisfied with what I was doing. My protector said: ‘I’m afraid of taking steps that are not on the map, but by taking those steps despite my fears, I have a much more interesting life.’ I asked more about the Tradition, and he said something like: ‘As long as God is merely man, we’ll always have enough food to eat and somewhere to live. When the Mother finally regains her freedom, we might have to sleep rough and live on love, or we might be able to balance emotion and work.’ My protector then asked: ‘If you weren’t a biologist, what would you be?’ I said: ‘A blacksmith, but they don’t earn enough money.’ And he replied: ‘Well, when you grow tired of being what you’re not, go and have fun and celebrate life, hammering metal into shape. In time, you’ll discover that it will give you more than pleasure, it will give you meaning.’ ‘How do I follow this tradition you spoke of?’ I asked. ‘As I said, through symbols,’ he replied. ‘Start doing what you want to do, and everything else will be revealed to you. Believe that God is the Mother and looks after her children and never lets anything bad happen to them. I did that and I survived. I discovered that there were other people who did the same but who are considered to be mad, irresponsible, superstitious. Since time immemorial, they’ve sought their inspiration in nature. We build pyramids, but we also develop symbols.’
“Having said that, he left, and I never saw him again. I only know, from that moment on, symbols did begin to appear because my eyes had been opened by that conversation. Hard though it was, one evening I told my family that, although I had everything a man could dream of having, I was unhappy, and that I had, in fact, been born to be a blacksmith. My wife protested, saying: ‘You were born a gypsy and had to face endless humiliations to get where you are, and yet you want to go back?’ My son, however, was thrilled, because he too liked to watch the blacksmiths in our village and hated the laboratories in the big cities.
“I started dividing my time between biological research and working as a blacksmith’s apprentice. I was always tired, but I was much happier. One day I left my job and set up my own blacksmith’s business, which went completely wrong from the start. Just when I was starting to believe in life, things got markedly worse. One day I was working away and I saw that there before me was a symbol.
“The unworked steel arrives in my workshop and I have to transform it into parts for cars, agricultural machinery, kitchen utensils. Do you know how that’s done? First, I heat the metal until it’s red-hot, then I beat it mercilessly with my heaviest hammer until the metal takes on the form I need. Then I plunge it into a bucket of cold water and the whole workshop is filled with the roar of steam while the metal sizzles and crackles in response to the sudden change in temperature. I have to keep repeating that process until the object I’m making is perfect: once is not enough.”
The blacksmith paused for a long time, lit a cigarette, then went on.
“Sometimes the steel I get simply can’t withstand such treatment. The heat, the hammer blows, the cold water cause it to crack. And I know that I’ll never be able to make it into a good plowshare or an engine shaft. Then I throw it on the pile of scrap metal at the entrance to my forge.”
Another long pause, then the blacksmith concluded: “I know that God is putting me through the fire of afflictions. I’ve accepted the blows that life has dealt me, and sometimes I feel as cold and indifferent as the water that inflicts such pain on the steel. But my one prayer is this: ‘Please, God, my Mother, don’t give up until I’ve taken on the shape that you wish for me. Do this by whatever means you think best, for as long as you like, but never ever throw me on the scrap heap of souls.’”
I may have been drunk when I finished my conversation with that man, but I knew that my life had changed. There was a tradition behind everything we learn, and I needed to go in search of people who, consciously or unconsciously, were able to make manifest the female side of God. Instead of cursing my government and all the political shenanigans, I decided to do what I really wanted to do: heal people. I wasn’t interested in anything else.
Since I didn’t have the necessary resources, I approached the local men and women, and they guided me to the world of medicinal herbs. I discovered that there was a popular tradition that went back hundreds of years and was passed from generation to generation through experience rather than through technical knowledge. With their help, I was able to do far more than I would otherwise have been able to do, because I wasn’t there merely to fulfill a university task or to help my government to sell arms, or, unwittingly, to spread party political propaganda. I was there because healing people made me happy.
This brought me closer to nature, to the oral tradition, and to plants. Back in Britain, I decided to talk to other doctors and I asked them: “Do you always know exactly which medicines to prescribe or are you sometimes guided by intuition?” Almost all of them, once they had dropped their guard, admitted that they were often guided by a voice and that when they ignored the advice of the voice, they ended up giving the wrong treatment. Obviously they make use of all the available technology, but they know that there is a corner, a dark corner, where lies the real meaning of the cure, and the best decision to make.
My protector threw my world off balance—even though he was only a gypsy blacksmith. I used to go at least once a year to his village, and we would talk about how, when we dare to see things differently, life opens up to our eyes. On one of those visits, I met other disciples of his, and together we discussed our fears and our conquests. My protector said: “I too get scared, but it’s at such moments that I discover a wisdom that is beyond me, and I go forward.”
Now I earn a lot of money working as a GP in Edinburgh, and I would earn even more if I went to work in London, but I prefer to make the most of life and to take time out. I do what I like: I combine the healing processes of the ancients, the Arcane Tradition, with the most modern techniques of present-day medicine, the Hippocratic Tradition. I’m writing a paper on the subject, and many people in the “scientific” community, when they see my text published in a specialist journal, will dare to take the steps which, deep down, they’ve always wanted to take.
I don’t believe that the mind is the source of all ills; there are real diseases too. I think antibiotics and antivirals were great advances for humanity. I don’t believe that a patient of mine with appendicitis can be cured by meditation alone; what he needs is some good emergency surgery. So I take each step
with courage and fear, combining technique and inspiration. And I’m careful who I say these things to, because I might get dubbed a witch doctor, and then many lives that I could have saved would be lost.
When I’m not sure, I ask the Great Mother for help. She has never yet failed to answer me. But she has always counseled me to be discreet. She probably gave the same advice to Athena on more than one occasion, but Athena was too fascinated by the world she was just starting to discover, and she didn’t listen.
A LONDON NEWSPAPER, AUGUST 24, 1991
THE WITCH OF PORTOBELLO
London (© Jeremy Lutton)—“That’s another reason why I don’t believe in God. I mean, look at the behavior of people who do believe!” This was the reaction of Robert Wilson, one of the traders in Portobello Road.
This road, known around the world for its antique shops and its Saturday flea market, was transformed last night into a battlefield, requiring the intervention of at least fifty police officers from the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea to restore order. By the end of the fracas, five people had been injured, although none seriously. The reason behind this pitched battle, which lasted nearly two hours, was a demonstration organized by the Rev. Ian Buck to protest about what he called “the Satanic cult at the heart of England.”
According to Rev. Buck, a group of suspicious individuals have been keeping the neighborhood awake every Monday night for the last six months, Monday being their chosen night for invoking the Devil. The ceremonies are led by a Lebanese woman, Sherine H. Khalil, who calls herself Athena, after the goddess of wisdom.
About two hundred people began meeting in a former East India Company warehouse, but the numbers increased over time, and in recent weeks, an equally large crowd has been gathering outside, hoping to gain entry and take part in the ceremony. When his various verbal complaints, petitions, and letters to the local newspapers achieved nothing, the Rev. Buck decided to mobilize the community, calling on his parishioners to gather outside the warehouse by 1900 hours yesterday to stop the “devil worshipers” from getting in.
“As soon as we received the first complaint, we sent someone to inspect the place, but no drugs were found nor evidence of any other kind of illicit activity,” said an official who preferred not to be identified because an inquiry has just been set up to investigate what happened. “They aren’t contravening the noise nuisance laws because they turn off the music at ten o’clock prompt, so there’s really nothing more we can do. Britain, after all, allows freedom of worship.”
The Rev. Buck has another version of events.
“The fact is that this witch of Portobello, this mistress of charlatanism, has contacts with people high up in the government, which explains why the police—paid for by taxpayers’ money to maintain order and decency—refuse to do anything. We’re living in an age in which everything is allowed, and democracy is being devoured and destroyed by that limitless freedom.”
The vicar says that he was suspicious of the group right from the start. They had rented a crumbling old building and spent whole days trying to renovate it, “which is clear evidence that they belong to some sect and have undergone some kind of brainwashing, because no one in today’s world works for free.” When asked if his parishioners ever did any charitable work in the community, the Rev. Buck replied: “Yes, but we do it in the name of Jesus.”
Yesterday evening, when she arrived at the warehouse to meet her waiting followers, Sherine Khalil, her son, and some of her friends were prevented from entering by the Rev. Buck’s parishioners, who were carrying placards and using megaphones to call on the rest of the neighborhood to join them. This verbal aggression immediately degenerated into fighting, and soon it was impossible to control either side.
“They say they’re fighting in the name of Jesus, but what they really want is for people to continue to ignore the teachings of Christ, according to which ‘we are all gods,’” said the well-known actress Andrea McCain, one of Sherine Khalil’s, or Athena’s, followers. Ms. McCain received a cut above her right eye, which was treated at once, and she left the area before your reporter could find out more about her links with the sect.
Once order was restored, Mrs. Khalil was anxious to reassure her eight-year-old son, but she did tell us that all that takes place in the warehouse is some collective dancing, followed by the invocation of a being known as Hagia Sofia, of whom people are free to ask questions. The celebration ends with a kind of sermon and a group prayer to the Great Mother. The officer charged with investigating the original complaints confirmed this.
As far as we could ascertain, the group has no name and is not registered as a charity. According to the lawyer Sheldon Williams, this is not necessary. “We live in a free country, and people can gather together in an enclosed space for non-profit-making activities, as long as these do not break any laws such as incitement to racism or the consumption of narcotics.”
Mrs. Khalil emphatically rejected any suggestion that she should stop the meetings because of the disturbances.
“We gather together to offer mutual encouragement,” she said, “because it’s very hard to face social pressures alone. I demand that your newspaper denounce the religious discrimination to which we’ve been subjected over the centuries. Whenever we do something that is not in accord with state-instituted and state-approved religions, there is always an attempt to crush us, as happened today. Before, we would have faced martyrdom, prison, being burned at the stake, or sent into exile, but now we are in a position to respond, and force will be answered with force, just as compassion will be repaid with compassion.”
When faced with the Rev. Buck’s accusations, she accused him of “manipulating his parishioners and using intolerance and lies as an excuse for violence.”
According to the sociologist Arthaud Lenox, phenomena like this will become increasingly common in the future, possibly involving more serious clashes between established religions. “Now that the Marxist utopia has shown itself incapable of channeling society’s ideals, the world is ripe for a religious revival, born of civilization’s natural fear of significant dates. However, I believe that when the year 2000 does arrive and the world survives intact, common sense will prevail and religions will revert to being a refuge for the weak, who are always in search of guidance.”
This view is contested by Dom Evaristo Piazza, the Vatican’s auxiliary bishop in the United Kingdom. “What we are seeing is not the spiritual awakening that we all long for, but a wave of what Americans call New Ageism, a kind of breeding ground in which everything is permitted, where dogmas are not respected, and the most absurd ideas from the past return to lay waste to the human mind. Unscrupulous people like this young woman are trying to instill their false ideas in weak, suggestible minds, with the one aim of making money and gaining personal power.”
The German historian Franz Herbert, currently working at the Goethe Institute in London, has a different idea. “The established religions no longer ask fundamental questions about our identity and our reason for living. Instead, they concentrate purely on a series of dogmas and rules concerned only with fitting in with a particular social and political organization. People in search of real spirituality are, therefore, setting off in new directions, and that inevitably means a return to the past and to primitive religions, before those religions were contaminated by the structures of power.”
At the police station where the incident was recorded, Sergeant William Morton stated that should Sherine Khalil’s group decide to hold their meeting on the following Monday and feel that they are under threat, then they must apply in writing for police protection and thus avoid a repetition of last night’s events.
(With additional information from Andrew Fish. Photos by Mark Guillhem.)
HERON RYAN, JOURNALIST
I read the report on the plane, when I was flying back from the Ukraine, feeling full of doubts. I still hadn’t managed to ascertain whether the Chernobyl disaster had been as big as it was said to h
ave been, or whether it had been used by the major oil producers to inhibit the use of other sources of energy.
Anyway, I was horrified by what I read in the article. The photos showed broken windows, a furious Reverend Buck, and—there lay the danger—a beautiful woman with fiery eyes and her son in her arms. I saw at once what could happen, both good and bad. I went straight from the airport to Portobello, convinced that both my predictions would become reality.
On the positive side, the following Monday’s meeting was one of the most successful events in the area’s history: many local people came, some curious to see the “being” mentioned in the article, others bearing placards defending freedom of religion and freedom of speech. The venue would only hold two hundred people, and so the rest of the crowd were all crammed together on the pavement outside, hoping for at least a glimpse of the woman who appeared to be the priestess of the oppressed.
When she arrived, she was received with applause, handwritten notes, and requests for help; some people threw flowers, and one lady of uncertain age asked her to keep on fighting for women’s freedom and for the right to worship the Mother. The parishioners from the week before must have been intimidated by the crowd and so failed to turn up, despite the threats they had made during the previous days. There were no aggressive comments, and the ceremony passed off as normal, with dancing, the appearance of Hagia Sofia (by then, I knew that she was simply another facet of Athena herself ), and a final celebration (this had been added recently, when the group moved to the warehouse, lent by one of its original members), and that was that.
