Mission

by Patrick Tilley

  Let’s be fair. We haven’t always been on the receiving end. It was we who began the current outbreak by stoning the followers of The Man for uttering blasphemy. What we didn’t foresee was that, with a little outside help, the Christians would turn religious intolerance into a fine art. They not only massacred us and the Moors; Catholic and Protestant had burned each other with equal fervour. Heresy and blasphemy brought imprisonment, mutilation and death to those indicted by the Church. And even today, blasphemy could still result in criminal prosecutions by outraged defenders of the faith. A curious fact when one considers the emphasis The Man put on love, forgiveness, and turning the other cheek, but perfectly understandable if considered as part of a running campaign by ‘Brax to destroy all hope of salvation by turning belief into bigotry. The seed-corn of hatred and discord which, if allowed to grow unchecked, would choke the life out of us. The Life Everlasting that is. Leaving us to feed on our own flesh like a colony of cannibal ants until the sun took matters into its own hands and put an end to us all by engulfing the solar system in its dying embrace, melting the ice on Neptune and bringing Pluto its first and last sunrise.

  I phoned McD and made similar arrangements. I didn’t get into lengthy explanations. I told her to schedule her arrival for around eleven a.m. but that, like the others, she should call before leaving to check that our house guest was still there. Miriam gave Fowler the same message. I made it up with her behind the kitchen door but just as I thought I’d got round her, she sank her teeth into my bottom lip to teach me that nothing worthwhile is achieved without pain.

  I left her to make a fresh pot of coffee and went back into the livingroom and readied the tape deck so that we could record the postponed session of the missing years.

  Some of you will be relieved to learn that I am not going to do a James Fitzpatrick-type travelogue on The Man’s journey; others, no doubt, will feel cheated that I chose to waste valuable space telling you about my work, my peccadilloes with people like Fran Nelson, and my relationship with Miriam. Let me just say that The Man told me to tell it my way. That stuff may seem unimportant but they were steps along The Way. Those people and places exist; those incidents took place. Their statements can be checked against this record and the notes and tapes in my safety deposit box to prove that I’m telling the truth. If you want to know what The Man got up to in Rome, all you have to do is listen to Reels Fourteen and Fifteen. What I’ve repeated here is the essential core of his story – which is where he disappeared to and why. And who with. For he was not to journey alone.

  It was the woman known as Mary Magdalene who travelled with him through the mountainous wildernesses of central Asia and over the windswept plains beyond to the myth-laden forests of Central Europe that stretched from the Danube to the Baltic Sea.

  Mary of Magdala had first met The Man when she had been eleven-years-old and he fourteen. Like a lot of young girls of that age, Mary had developed an instant crush on the young Joshua-Ya’el and was devastated when, a year later, he left Nazareth to join his cousin Johanan-Gabriel in the Essene commune at Aenon near Salim. Mary was one of a small group of people outside The Man’s immediate family who knew the secret story of his birth; she also possessed the latent gift of clairvoyance. During the years that followed his departure for Aenon, her powers of extra-sensory perception came to the fore, making her, in the end, the most gifted of The Man’s followers. It was she who perceived his Celestial presence more clearly than anyone else. It was Mary who first saw him in the garden after the Resurrection and it was she who was ‘the disciple whom Jesus loved’. Don’t be confused by passages in the Gospels where she and this elusive, allegedly male, character are both reported as being present. That is due to emendations of the texts by Pauline scribes who either did not understand or chose to ignore her key role in the Christ-Mystery.

  And so it was that, at the age of nineteen, Mary made her way to Aenon on the bank of the River Jordan to join The Man on the Long March. Their relationship was a sad and curious eternal triangle. Joshua barjoseph, if he’d been given the choice and the opportunity, would have been more than happy to settle down with a woman like Mary of Magdala. But Mary was in love with Ya’el. The Man behind the man. If Ya’el had not been there, she would not have been drawn to his Ain-folk persona.

  Taking their leave of Gabriel, The Man and Mary journeyed north-eastwards to Harran, the birthplace of the patriarch Abraham, and the city where Gaspar, one of the three magi was nearing the end of yet another earth-life. From Harran, they had followed the Euphrates as it flowed southwards through the fertile crescent to Babylon, where they were welcomed by Melchior, the second of the magi. Then it was eastwards, along the route hewn by Alexander through Susa, Persepolis, past the Straits of Hormuz and the shores of the Arabian Sea to Alexandria Portus on the delta of the Indus; the city that was to become Karachi.

  Now far beyond the rule of Rome, The Man and Mary made their way along the banks of the Indus to Kashmir and on into the Himalayas and the depths of Asia where closed communities, similar in spirit to the Essenes, formed islands of awareness in a world that had sunk beneath a sea of superstition and ignorance. An archipelago which, in contrast to Solzhenitsyn’s, were outposts of freedom in ‘Brax’s global gulag.

  It was here that The Man and his companion rested, and where he found an awakened Celestial presence which drew its strength from the life-forces within the Earth; the dwindling Power of The Presence which was to come into the world again through The Man. But, as we sat listening to him on that Saturday in Sleepy Hollow, this new transfusion of power that would enable us to grasp Eternity and which, for us, had occurred some two thousand years earlier, had not yet galvanised the world of the Apostles.

  Such were the mind-bending rules of the game that the Empire was playing with Time.

  The world through which The Man and Mary of Magdala travelled was a far cry from our own, computerised global village but, as the inspired reasoning and dramatic observation of the Greek philosophers and playwrights have shown, there has been very little change in the human condition. During the twelve years he spent on the road, The Man asked himself many of the questions I have reiterated here and found himself worried and depressed by some of the answers. For his journey was not primarily inspired by a spirit of self-sacrifice; it was a quest for knowledge, motivated by the desire to fulfil his mission regardless of the cost and whatever the final outcome.

  It was in the hidden power-centres, the mystery schools of Persia, India and Asia, and along the trail of the Celtic Druids through Central Europe to the seeing-stones of Carnac in Gaullish France and the rings of power at Glastonbury in pre-Roman Britain, that The Man was able to fuse his meta-psyche with Eardh-Ain’s memory and absorb the history of the planet; the descent of the Ain-folk into Man and their subsequent enslavement by ‘Brax.

  But while these closed communities had guarded the secret knowledge of Empire for uncounted generations, they could not tell The Man all he needed to know. The mass of humanity was not able to withdraw into a sheltered life of comtemplative ascetisism; turning one’s back on external reality was not a solution that could be universally applied. Man had to live and work in the ‘Braxian world but, by liberating the Celestial power within himself through gnosis-the acquisition of self-knowledge – he could make it a better place to live in. ‘To be in the world but not of it.’

  The words came from The Man’s mouth but I recognised the phrase as one of the fundamental precepts of the Sufi, the mystical branch of Islam whose members were also known as the Followers of The Way.

  It was this sense of purpose that drove him on for those twelve long years in which he and Mary of Magdala travelled thousands of miles on foot, on ox-carts, mules and the decks of boats. He journeyed not as a prince among men, but as a penniless wayfarer; both of them working their way from place to place; seeking shelter wherever it could be found.

  It was a tough, bleak and often dangerous road but the harsh conditions were te
mpered by Mary’s loving presence. When one of them stumbled, the other managed to find inner reserves of strength; when one despaired the other gave hope; when one became angry and embittered the other showed compassion and understanding; when they were cold they warmed each other; when they were hungry, they gave each other sustenance. It was not easy for The Man to master the entirely human emotions with which Joshua’s earth-body was endowed and in which his own spirit-being was trapped, but it was only through living as he did that he could fully understand the hold that ‘Brax had over the world and discover whether it was still possible to liberate the Ainfolk.

  Reaching Britain, The Man led Mary towards Glastonbury where the Celtic druids had harnessed the earth-forces that flowed through the matrix formed by the Glastonbury Zodiac; the terrestial mirror-image of the astral configurations that represented the twelve great Celestial Aeons who now inhabited Mankind. The earth-zodiac was another piece of the esoteric evidence that linked the physical world to that of the Empire and which was alluded to in the cryptic phrase of the medieval alchemists – ‘As above, so below.’

  The Man’s visit to Britain, which included a side-trip to Ireland, set the stage for the subsequent arrival of Joseph of Arimathea at the court of the Welsh king, Arviragus, with the chalice from the Last Supper. His journey and that of Joseph and his companions provided the cornerstone on which Irish-Celtic Christianity was built – unmarred by the distortions created by the Apostolic Succession. It was also the well-spring from which were drawn the legendary tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. The mythical knights and their deeds of derring-do were the human counterparts of the warring Celestials and the quest for the Holy Grail symbolised the inexpressible longing of Man’s trapped spirit to be reunited with the transcendent being of God.

  From Britain, The Man went back to France, down the Atlantic Coast to the Pyrenees and into Spain. Crossing over to Africa via the Pillars of Hercules, he and Mary made their way eastwards to Carthage, in present-day Tunisia, and used his total mastery of language to talk his way on to a Roman freighter heading for Sicily. From here, it was a relatively short hop across the Straits of Messina to the Italian mainland, then north to Naples and Rome. The Eternal City.

  No other place on earth ever held so much concentrated wealth and power for so long, and it would be another four hundred years before the empire-building, the throat-cutting wheeling and dealing, the anything-goes villa parties and the bloodstained circuses were closed down by the Barbarian invasions.

  In all, The Man spent some four months in Italy before crossing the Adriatic to Greece. Athens first, then round the Aegean to Asia Minor; travelling in reverse the route that Paul was to take a few years later; through Thessalonica, Philippi, Pergamum, Sardis, Ephesus, Colossae and Perga.

  At Perga, they secured passage on a small Phoenician trading boat which was heading for Paphos in Cyprus. Another Roman ship, which had taken shelter from one of the frequent Mediterranean storms, took them to Alexandria where The Man sought out the ageing Balthazzar, the third of the magi who had borne witness to his birth.

  It was through Balthazzar that The Man made the final connection with the past history of the Jews. In the desert communities of Egypt and Sinai he met the keepers of the Ancient Wisdom that had been handed down from the Pharaonic priests of the Old Kingdom and which had been brought into the world by the Celestial Envoy known as Thoth, and to us as Hermes Trismegistos.

  Hermes; the Greek god of messengers with his winged staff; the caduceus with its interwoven branches, usually depicted as two serpents coiled around it in opposing spirals. Binah and Chokmah, the two spirals of force that connected earth with heaven. And the staff itself which, like St George’s lance, represented the third unifying element, but with wings to show that it came from above – the Power of The Presence. The same power that had armed the rod of Aaron. The apocryphal staff that became a serpent which swallowed up those produced by the lesser magicians of the Egyptian court and which, on another occasion, sprouted branches of flowering almond overnight. Yet another code message for you to work on.

  From the Nile, where Moses had allegedly been found in the bullrushes, The Man and Mary retraced the route taken by Moses in the miraculous Exodus: across the Bitter Lakes, then southwards into the emptiness of the Sinai peninsular where Moses had his mountaintop appointment with God.

  It was about a thousand stony miles to Nazareth via Mount Sinai, but I suppose The Man must have thought it worth the detour. Turning for home, they went northwards along the Gulf of Aqabah and on through Idumea, the Arab homeland of Herod the Great, to the wells of Beer-Sheba. There was now only a hundred miles to go. They passed through Hebron, paused briefly at Bethlehem, where The Man’s astonished relatives told them that Joseph and Eliza, Gabriel’s earth-mother had both died, then pressed on to Jerusalem. After the silence of the desert crossing, the noise and bustle of the crowded city was almost unbearable.

  Although Mary Magdalene had stuck with him every inch of the way and had shared his hardships with amazing fortitude, the last leg of the journey through Sinai had drained her last reserves of strength. Realising that she could go no further, The Man sought help from Nicodemus.

  Somewhat naturally, Nicodemus didn’t recognise the ragged, travel-stained beggar who stood on his doorstep, or the woman at his side until The Man reminded him of their meeting at the Temple twenty-two years before when, as a child, he had amazed everybody with his interpretation of the Torah. That was something Nicodemus had not forgotten. He immediately invited them in, gave them the VIP treatment, and persuaded them to stay for several days. Both got their first hot bath since Rome, all the food their shrunken stomachs could handle, and a change of clothes.

  Although he had not fully recovered from the rigours of his journey, The Man decided it was time to seek out Johanan-Gabriel. Reassured by Nicodemus that Mary would be nursed back to health, The Man headed north-east towards Jericho and the green valley of the River Jordan. Then it happened. On the road between Jerusalem and Jericho, he fell among thieves who, as the story goes – ‘stripped him of his raiment, wounded him and departed, leaving him half dead’. Yes. This was one parable he didn’t have to make up.

  It was the rich clothes that Nicodemus had pressed upon him that had got The Man into trouble; and it was Joseph of Arimathea who was the Good Samaritan.

  If the above news leaves some of you a little hazy, let me just explain that Arimathea was a village in Samaria, a province of Palestine sandwiched between Judea in the south, and Galilee. The Samaritans were the descendants of a group of Israelites that missed the boat when the rest of the nation was shipped off to Babylon by the Assyrians. Although their life was based on rigid observance of the Torah, they were regarded by the returning Jews as ‘unclean’. The Samaritans, through choice or circumstance, had diluted their racial purity through mixed marriages and because their faith had not been tempered by the long years of exile, their brand of Judaism was held to be not strictly kosher. Besides being an object lesson in charity, the parable of the Good Samaritan was a sharp reminder that religious bigotry was alive and well long before Catholic and Protestant turned it into a mindless excuse for murder.

  This meeting between The Man and Joseph of Arimathea on the Jericho road was the beginning of a clandestine association which finally came out into the open at the Crucifixion when The Man was suddenly short on friends.

  So how, you ask, did someone as powerful as The Man let himself be mugged almost within sight of home? The answer is simple. Like Mary, his physical strength had been exhausted, and the inner power of his meta-psyche had been drained by the unrelenting struggle with ‘Brax. It’s important to understand that The Man in the flesh did not have at his disposal the stunning powers of his resurrected form. They were blunted by the earth-body to which he was bound.

  ‘Brax had made telepathic contact with Johanan-Gabriel impossible but, in fact, The Man had long given up trying to reach him. Indeed, he h
ad given up on just about everything and it was only the mutual support that Mary and he had given each other that enabled them to keep going until they finally reached home. But he had returned defeated; without any hope of rescue for himself; convinced that the liberation of the trapped Ain-folk was a lost cause. For even if the promised rescue mission arrived, the weight of karma he had acquired would make return to the Empire impossible. He was now just another of the Celestial prisoners of the ‘Braxian universe.

  After The Man had rested up for a few days, Joseph of Arimathea returned from Jerusalem and persuaded him to join his own party which was taking the road north through Samaria to Sebaste, the capital of the region. A mere thirty-five miles from Nazareth. As a result, The Man did not get to call on Johanan-Gabriel. It would have been a wasted journey. The Essenes had moved their base from Aenon near Salim on the Jordan to more secure quarters on the forbidding slopes of the Wadi Qumran on the edge of the Dead Sea. And Johanan-Gabriel was some eighty miles further north, checking out their abandoned landing module which lay buried under a snowcovered plateau near the summit of Mount Hermon.

  Gabriel was responding to a signal he had received from the lead vessel of the rescue fleet, now only twelve months out from Earth. On his arrival at the hidden landing-site, he found that the mysterious malfunction that had forced their abandonment of the module had cleared itself, enabling the craft to be recharged by a burst of power transmitted via the chain of longships. For the first time since entering the World Below, Gabriel was in two-way contact with the Empire. To his surprise, the Empire knew of The Man’s return to Palestine, and they gave Gabriel precise instructions on what to do when they met.

  Joshua-Ya’el, the Jesus-figure who now made his way from Sebaste to Nazareth bore no resemblance to the gentle, smooth-faced supplicant portrayed in devotional literature. This was a lean, ravaged, fiery-eyed wayfarer, with calloused hands and feet, and whipcord muscles like the miners of West Virginia under a skin that wind, sand, snow and rain had turned into weathered rawhide. When he arrived home, Mary, his mother, was overjoyed to see her eldest son alive and well. Despite his strange, other-wordly genesis inside her body – which she had accepted with a kind of child-like wonder without ever fully understanding – he was still her favourite son. Like the rest of the family she had long given him up for dead and now, here he was. Scarred from his travels, but still with the same intense gaze that, in The Man-child, had filled them with awe and, behind the outward show of diffidence, the same defiant air of authority that had amazed the priests all those years ago in Jerusalem.