Need I say more on this disgraceful topic? With great respect to Your Honour and the court, I had to say as much as I did. I’m told that certain mystics in the past have got away with the boast that God has no hands but theirs. To some pious folk, I guess this may not sound blasphemous. But only go into the implications a little, as I have been obliged to do today, and it’s evident that blasphemy of a peculiarly disgusting kind lies behind that seemingly innocuous sentiment.
The Accused has himself sawn off the branch he thought he was sitting pretty on, has uncoiled enough rope to hang himself with - several times over. The Jury will be fascinated to witness his efforts to survive his own Defence.
MYSELF: Having acknowledged that l’m almost as impressed with Counsel’s dirty story as he is, let me assure him that I too shall listen with much interest to the response it evokes here. I swear to you I don’t know in advance what the One under attack has up His sleeve for the court - a sleeve which, though abbreviated (as we’ve seen), is much more capacious than would first appear. In so far as He’s conducting His Defence right here, all will go well. In so far as the man you see is doing so, it won’t. Well, here goes:
Counsel at pains to disinfect the Almighty and jack up His social standing - till He’s salubrious and respectable enough to be invited to a dinner party thrown by a retired company-director’s wife in Riseholme or Tilling, or even Bognor Regis - now there’s a delightful spectacle! It’s a lily that requires no gilding by me. Except perhaps to remind Counsel that dirt is matter in the wrong place, and nothing in God’s world is in the wrong place. To the Pure all things are pure. Unattached hands are never dirty, attached ones never clean.
The point I do want to make is a very simple and very serious one. As so often in the course of these proceedings, what the Prosecution supposes to be the end, the coup de grâce of my case, is the practical start of it. Repeat, practical. The One who has the whole world in His hands doesn’t mishandle it. When I consciously live from Who I really am right here, from this inverted and decapitated body which is His and not Jack’s, I find these hands caressing His world and doing His work, I find these feet going on His journeys, I find this voice speaking His words. I challenge anyone to see steadily into his or her True Nature, and do violence to it. Impossible! ‘Turn the man loose who has found the Living Guide within him,’ says John Everard, ‘and let him neglect the outward if he can.’ If you find your hands conjuring packets of smoked salmon from the Witness’s shelves into your shopping bag instead of your shopping basket, or changing nappies with nose-wrinkling disgust, or swatting flies instead of letting them out, or washing dishes while you are wool-gathering leagues away, or doing any sort of botched job - why, then you can be sure they aren’t God’s hands. Or be sure, rather, that you are putting them forth in ignorance of Whose they really are. In fact, I challenge anyone to overlook his or her True and Divine Nature, hallucinating in its place his or her false human nature, and not to go on to steal and lie and be disgusted and unkind and inefficient and all thumbs - in some sense and to some degree.
Meister Eckhart said that if he had to choose between God and Truth he would choose Truth. The same here. I don’t take notice of and insist on these loose hands and feet because they are efficient, or even because they are God’s, but because they are God-given - or rather, plain given. Because they are actual and factual and true, and no hallucination.
Do what you like to me, I will live from what I see is here, not from what you say is here. And I will tell the world about it. And I will take the consequences. Meanwhile, I swear to you that to live from this is really to live. Which is to live Godly.
COUNSEL, in the falsetto he ascends to when he’s absolutely horrified: Oh, no! You’re not getting away with that one! What’s given - in your self-portrait as the upside-down and headless monster to which you attribute divinity - what’s given isn’t just hands and feet. There’s also a truncated trunk. A trunk furnished with sex organs. Sex organs activated by lust. Don’t tell me there’s any other sort.
I’ll spare the court a detailed exposition of what this means. The Jury will already have spotted that here we have what must be the Arch-blasphemer at his most uninhibited - a creature who makes out that even his sexual exploits are divine! Talk about irreverence! This is dragging the Highest down to the level of the farmyard!
MYSELF: I'm told He doesn’t need dragging. He chose to be born among the beasts in that stable in Bethlehem. Beasts whose sexuality was uninhibited. And innocent.
Like so much else, our sexuality comes in three instalments. First, that of the animal and the young child. It’s as blameless and decent as their eating and drinking. Second, that of the human grown-up, which is unnatural and indecent in so far as it’s what D. H. Lawrence called sex in the head, and I call eccentric sex, or spying on one’s own lovemaking. The genuine sexuality of the headless First Person on the bed is spoiled by the false sexuality of the headed third person at the bedroom keyhole - of the one who never felt the least stirring of desire. Third, the sexuality of the truly grown-up, of the Seer who is no longer beside himself. Ceasing to be his own voyeur, he regains at a higher level his lost innocence and spontaneity. Along with his head he loses sex-in-the-head, and finds the real thing in his loins. Head he loses, tail he wins.
And, after all, Counsel putting on his holier-than-thou act (shocked to the core yet again is our Sir Gerald!) is rather comical. And misinformed. Eastern spirituality insists that only God sees and hears and is aware - which must mean that only God enjoys sex. And again, Western spirituality insists on a God who, humbling Himself, becomes man. Which must mean He takes on a sexual life as real as yours and mine. Moreover, as the All-in-all-aside from Whom nothing is - He can’t escape sex. Does He then find Himself disgusting? Hardly! He leaves that to Sir Gerald and his friends, stuck waist-deep in their second-stage sex-in-the-head.
Now for my main point. Just as I challenge you to see into your Godhood and help yourself to boxes of Suchard liqueur chocolates from the Witness’s shelves, so I challenge you to see into your Godhood and misuse sex for showing off or dominating or hurting instead of for loving. How could you truly make love except as the One who alone makes Love and is Love?
JUDGE, to me: How ever did we get from the Witness’s supermarket to this extraordinary palaver about sex? I think it’s time you summed up your response to his testimony.
MYSELF: It was Counsel, Your Honour, who dragged in the subject of sex. A Whitehousean stick to beat me with - he thought! In fact the issue before this court is a very simple one: whose appendages are these? [I hold out my arms.] The contrast between the little fellow you see and the Big One I see here can scarcely be exaggerated. It’s staggering, and it extends from their respective limbs to all aspects of their lives. Those hands drive a Land Rover. These drive the Land. Those feet stumble and shuffle and shilly-shally on Jack’s business. These stride forth on God’s business. Those hands fend off the world. These embrace it. Those hands manipulate. These heal and bless. Those hands compose, play, paint, sculpt, and write run-of-the-mill pieces. These turn out the Master‘s masterpieces.
Only see Him nearer than hands and feet, and at once they are HIS hands and feet, busy and effective in His service. True uccelli di Dio.
Members of the Jury, if you think that this time I really have gone too far, have indeed gone way out on a fantastical limb of my own, listen to my witnesses. A well-thought-of company, I do assure you.
The Great Function manifests Itself without fixed rules. Meeting each situation on its own terms, It’s never too soon, never too late. Thrusting and retracting, advancing and retreating - all happens beyond the realm of thought. When you’re in harmony with It, arms and legs operate on their own.
Japanese Zen Master Bankei
I touched my limbs; the limbs were strange, not mine.
Tennyson
Gary Snyder has a poem about a climber who’s stuck, in mortal danger, on a rock-face. And then his limbs m
ove with a positiveness and precision with which, it seems, he has nothing to do. I say: his human body as such had to die before the limbs of his divine body could take over.
It is one’s spiritual Nature in Enlightenment that moves these arms and legs.
Bodhidharma
You did not throw when you threw, but Allah threw.
The Koran
I [Allah] am the Hearing wherewith he [My slave] heareth, and the Sight wherewith he seeth, and the Hand wherewith he smiteth, and the Foot whereon he walketh.
The Traditions of the Prophet
We wake up in the body of Christ
and Christ wakes up in our bodies.
My poor hand is Christ.
He enters my foot, is infinitely me.
I move my hand, and - O wonder! -
My hand becomes Christ…
I move my foot, and at once
Like lightning he appears.
St Simeon the New Theologian
My head is the sky, my feet are below the Earth, and my two hands are East and West.
Abu ’l-Hasan Khurqani
Prosecution Witness No. 13
THE CANADIAN WIDOW
COUNSEL, to Witness: I believe you know the man in the dock over there. Will you please explain how you came to meet him and what happened.
WITNESS: A few months ago I was flying from London Heathrow to Vancouver, and he was in the seat next to me. We began talking about this and that. I told him a little about myself, and how I’d lost my husband recently and was returning to my native Canada. Then it happened. I’m not clear about all the details, but it was something very extraordinary. He exercised a strange power over me, so that I went quite peculiar for a time. Not all there, up for grabs. I feel very ashamed of it now, very embarrassed that I should have been so gullible.
COUNSEL: No need to feel ashamed, especially as you are no longer under his influence. I’d like you to tell the court what you remember about his behaviour on that journey of something like eight hours.
WITNESS: Well, we had dinner, with some wine. I was feeling very relaxed. I must say I rather took to him. It was then that he hypnotized me.
COUNSEL: Exactly how?
WITNESS: He got me to look steadily into his eyes. At close quarters, of course - the tourist-class seats made sure of that. He passed his hand several times in front of my face, back and forth. He was talking all the while, in a strangely quiet but insistent voice. Soothing and persuasive it was.
COUNSEL: And he was saying?
WITNESS: This is the embarrassing bit. He kept on telling me I didn’t have a head! I shall never understand how I fell for that story. Probably it was a combination of several things. Air travel always puts me in a slightly dreamlike state. Is it that the reduced air-pressure makes one light-headed? The food and the wine had their effect. But what did the trick, of course, was his steady staring, the movement of his hands, his soothing voice and the repetition of that crazy thing about having no head. Result: I really did believe him. Just imagine: a few minutes of that treatment, and he had me quite sure that, crouching there in the window-seat, was a monster without a head! None of the other people, just me! So complete was his power over me, so complete was my surrender to it, that I do believe if he’d told me I had three heads or was legless and armless, I’d have agreed with him.
COUNSEL: Then what happened?
WITNESS: I stayed under the influence the rest of the journey, though there was no more staring into my eyes or passing his hand in front of them. It wasn’t needed. He went on feeding me what I now recognize were post-hypnotic suggestions. I’ll say this for him, however: so far from telling me that I was to forget his instructions, I was to remember them. Amnesia was the last thing he was after. He assured me that the headless life I was going to live would be very different from the old one. I might well lose interest in my less creative hobbies, and gain energy for my creative work - whatever it turned out to be. I would certainly care less about what people thought of me. I would certainly notice colours and shapes and sounds more. Everything would be different. Upside down was a phrase he used several times. Yes, we didn’t go to sleep at all, but went on talking through the in-flight movie. I kept on asking questions, and he answered in that very assured, persuasive voice of his. As I look back on it now, it all seems out of this world, a dream...
COUNSEL: A nightmare?
WITNESS: Not at all. It was wonderful - while it lasted. Wonderful, and kooky. There’s one thing I shan’t forget in a hurry. He talked me into believing that on my shoulders, in place of the head of a human being, was... I feel awful saying this... the Head of the World. He actually got me agreeing with him that, as he put it, losing my human head was finding my divine head!
COUNSEL: How did it all finish?
WITNESS: Well, as we got near the end of the flight, he gave me his address in England and said I could write. And he gave me the addresses of a number of his ‘seeing’ friends, as he called them, in the Vancouver region, and urged me to get in touch with them. Doing so, he said, would help me to live the new life. Also, he suggested that I should show my friends and relations that they didn’t have heads. It was quite easy, he said.
And then, on arrival in Vancouver, we parted, not to meet again until today... There was I, in the baggage claim, thanking him profusely and promising to stay headless, and not forget the marvellous Being I really was. I tell you, I’d gone all funny. I really was off my head.
COUNSEL: Kindly tell the court about how you got it back on again. How soon was it before you came to your senses?
WITNESS: I went to stay for six months near Castlegar, in British Columbia, with my brother and his family. He and his wife are physicians, and know quite a bit about hypnosis. At once they were struck by the change in me. I was in a kind of trance, they said. They noticed how I’d lost interest in my hobbies, including astrology and bridge and a novel a week. And how I did a good deal of just hanging around, as if expecting instructions or waiting for something to happen. Before, I’d always kept busy, and hated being alone. Now I loved going for solitary walks. My brother and sister-in-law say I mooned around with a vacant look on my face. Not just my behaviour but my appearance had changed, according to them. l must say I felt different.
COUNSEL: In what way different?
WITNESS: It was as if the wind had swept right through me, blowing me clean away. As if I was a sort of imbecile, irresponsible, not giving a damn, light-headed and empty-headed. Colours blazed out. Food tasted delicious. For a change, I didn’t resent housework. Not so pleasant was the fact that quite a number of folk that I used to admire seemed to me to be putting on acts. I could see through their games so easily. Some old friends were upset, angry with me for no special reason I could make out... And so on. Life had changed all down the line, just as he said it would.
COUNSEL: And then?
WITNESS: Well, two or three weeks of my brother’s strongly expressed anxiety about me, plus what I can only call normal company and sane conversation, and I snapped out of all that. I woke from the dream. I became my old self, feet back on the ground. My brother and his wife - I’m so grateful to them - patiently showed me how I’d been hypnotized by a very dangerous man, and gone on to act out his instructions. Once I clearly understood what had happened, and had read something about the quite amazing effects of post-hypnotic suggestion, and seen a couple of videos on the subject, I quickly got back to normal. My old interests returned, I lost that vacant look, loved all sorts of company again - and got my head firmly screwed on once more. My relations were much relieved. No permanent harm done, I think. But I’ll always feel ashamed of falling a victim to that spellbinder over there.
COUNSEL: I take it you didn’t get in touch with the people whose addresses he’d given you?
WITNESS: In the end, I did so. My brother felt it was my duty to write and warn them against the danger they were in from Mr Nokes. Probably they were too far gone, too much under his influence to break fre
e the way I’d managed to. But at least we had a try.
COUNSEL: And how would you sum up your present feelings about the Accused?
WITNESS: I’d put him in the same class as Svengali. Rasputin would be going too far. But even they, I think, only played God. They didn’t set up to be God. What an awful thing he’s doing! And yet, you know, I don’t dislike him at all. I just feel terribly sad and sorry for him. He’s really ill. With a very, very infectious disease from which the public should be protected.
COUNSEL: Please stay in the witness-box. The Accused signals that he wishes to cross-examine you.
The Trial Of The Man Who Said He Was God Page 13
