An Angel on My Shoulder

by David Callinan

  There was a mass of material on pendulums; including the downright wacky, such as conversations with aliens from Sirius. It looked like his Ebenezer did not exist in cyberspace. Paul gazed at the pearl droplet coiled in the palm of his hand. It glistened like a mysterious third eye. What else was lurking out there in spiritual space? He began the security checking routine once again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Past lives and parallel universes

  Like a terrier worrying a bone, Paul could not seem to prevent himself returning to the question that had been on his mind since it insinuated itself into his consciousness. Had Kate been unfaithful to him? It was funny, although he wasn’t laughing, how such a basic and fundamental human emotion such as jealousy and an everyday event such as having an affair seemed to dominate this pendulum process. Paul had to lay the ghost of this situation one way or another. So far, the answer appeared to be that she might have been or had thought about it. Big deal! Hadn’t he thought about it enough times? He wanted to move on to bigger questions, more cosmic issues but he was held captive by his own jealous desire for revelation.

  He decided to explore Kate’s blockages once again, if she had any, and just see how consistent the pendulum’s answers would be.

  He fought hard to prevent the recurrence of any rampant images of Kate and Terry Sullivan that had first swamped his mind when he experienced the shock and surprise of the information.

  He asked to be put in contact with his supreme soul and the pearl droplet swung to the left indicating that he was.

  “Has Kate any particular stains she needs to remove which would make here happier?” he asked.

  The pendulum swung in a broad arc moving across each section of the barcode-like chart at an even pace. Paul marvelled at the simplicity of the device. It did appear to possess life of its own in some form. One moment it could spin in a tightly controlled circle and at other times it could rotate in a circle so wide it put pressure on Paul’s fingertips. Then it could alter and move in straight lines up and down and along the chart until it found the section or berth it was searching for. There was a striking similarity to, what Paul could only describe as, a spiritual roulette wheel in the way it homed in on the section it was looking for, but without the element of chance.

  On this occasion the pendulum ceased its slow circumnavigation and began to change to its forwards and backwards movement. Paul held the question firmly in his mind. He had already surmised that this process was part prediction, part prophecy, part psychic information and part mental and spiritual analysis.

  The trick was to be able to discriminate and distinguish between the kinds of information being revealed.

  The section on Past Lives was hoving into range on the magical blackjack table. At first, Paul was confused. He had mixed feelings about past lives and remembered many a conversation with Malone about the topic, usually over several bottles of a good Shiraz.

  Paul reminded himself that he had already checked out the Kate and Terry Sullivan business and came to the conclusion that probably she hadn’t done the dirty on him. Hardly conclusive evidence. So was this corroboration or conflict? He would soon find out.

  Terry Sullivan had no connection with Kate’s past life, he told himself, although he could not rightly say for sure. No, Terry Sullivan was very much of the here and now. Paul knew him only to pass the time of day. He hadn’t seen him for many months, ever since Kate had decided to sell her horse and just hire a hack when she fancied going riding.

  Sullivan had large hands and smelt of hay, Paul recalled. Kate had taken her bay mare to run with his stallions. Horses were Kate’s passion and had been ever since her childhood. Her unexpected fall had somehow knocked the wind out of her sails not to mention denting her confidence. That’s when she decided to sell Bessie. Naturally, it was Terry Sullivan to whom she turned and he bought the horse for the asking price. This fact alone should have been enough to alert Paul to the nature of Kate’s relationship. No horse trader ever buys at the asking price. They are genetically predisposed to bargaining.

  Paul commenced the yes and no procedure and established that something from Kate’s previous life had spilled over into this incarnation and it was this which could not be cleared because she was working her way through it this time around. So, what did Terry Sullivan have to do with it?

  They did say that people reincarnated in groups. At least that was one theory. In fact, it was Malone’s theory. He maintained that the inhabitants of Atlantis were reincarnating on Earth en masse and, since genetic black magic and distorted practices had been responsible for the final collapse of their civilization, this was why, said Malone, that genetic engineering had become one of the fastest growing scientific practices today. This may have been one of Malone’s more fanciful theories but, as always, he swore by it.

  So maybe the answer to the Kate question was that she had to make reparation for something she had done in her past life and perhaps Terry Sullivan, or a version of him, was also a feature in that life. Maybe?

  The pendulum began to swing in an eccentric circle. Paul knew immediately that something or some presence had usurped the supreme soul. He decided to play along. He was alone in the house and would be for a couple of hours. He did have work to do but he would take care of that tomorrow.

  “Do we know each other?” asked Paul.

  “Yes,” came the answer.

  “Have you made contact before?”

  “Yes,” circled the pendulum almost sparkling with life.

  “Past life?” Paul queried.

  The answer was affirmative. The illusion that followed was intense and completely filled his mind, blotting out the world around him.

  A battle scene on a hilltop was suddenly and violently inserted into Paul’s mind. He was blinded by stinging sand and deafened by the sounds of galloping hooves. This was not a dream although it had a dreamlike quality. It also had the feel of something that had really happened to him. It was a re-enactment. More than this, it was happening now. Around him pounded riders in desert cloaks and masks screaming at and killing all in their path at the epicentre of a furious battle. Paul could not make out where he was exactly but he was not alone. The air was filled with smoke cries of the dying and wounded, and with the screams of the victims as they hurled themselves through a stinging sandstorm frantically trying to escape the flashing swords of the horsemen.

  He felt himself being picked up bodily, and carried at a furious pace through the raging genocide, as if he weighed no more than a grain of sand, and then full tilt down into the gaping maw of a pit beneath a flapping tent, ripped by the wind and sliced by scimitars. His mouth was filled with sand and stones as he fell, still held by powerful arms. Fear engulfed him as they landed on the remnants of smashed crockery, tables, carpets and camel skin rugs. Paul tried to move, realizing that the sounds of battle had ebbed and that he was in some kind of sunken sand cellar.

  He was crying with pain and terror. It was then that he felt gratitude to whoever it was who had saved his life. Slowly, in the darkness, spitting sand from his mouth, he felt himself being turned over bodily. It was hard to see the person who now loomed above him. It was a man whose face was obscured by a hood. Paul tried to thank the man but no sound emerged from his swollen lips. It was then that Paul sensed something was not right. This man had not saved his life; he had captured him.

  Paul felt the superior strength of the man then as his captor began to push Paul’s robe up along his body exposing his thighs and stomach. Paul tried to struggle but it was impossible to move. The man’s free hand roamed over his body at will and his eyes seemed to light up in the darkness. Paul tried to cry out again but the man pressed closer. His hand pushed Paul’s thighs apart and it was then that Paul discovered that he had no male sexual organs. With a jerk of shock and surprise but also with an acceptance that came from practice, he knew that he was a woman and that he was about to be raped.

  The man pushed a knotted finger inside Paul,
grunting as he did so and speaking in an incomprehensible tongue. Pleasure rippled through Paul like a desert sword, against his will, and it began to engulf him.

  There was a sudden ripping noise and a bellow of voices, hard guttural sounds from parched and hoarse larynxes. They had been discovered. The man holding him was torn away and he was then grabbed by yet more powerful arms belonging to a man shadow stinking of dust, camel dung and urine.

  In the confusion, in the moonless darkness, swirling sand and pools of blood outside, Paul sensed the grip that held him begin to relax. A furious argument was taking place and he was the subject of it. He, or should that be she, was clearly a valuable trophy and someone of high rank. Paul pushed away with all his strength, wriggled free and ran. He somehow avoided death by being trampled or by the sword as he stumbled over bodies lying in gore and excrement. He knew someone was behind him trying to catch him. He also knew, without knowing a single fact about it, that he or she was somehow important. He sweated and cried and ran for all he was worth till he found himself at the ledge of a cliff. She turned and he turned. If death must come let it come. Paul felt then what it was like to be female and to be elevated to a heightened state and know the ultimate fear that precedes death.

  The drop was into inky darkness and filled Paul’s stomach with icy fear. A desert wind rushed up from the emptiness below. A heavy hand landed on his shoulder and pushed. The darkness rushed towards him.

  It was dark outside. Paul emerged from his reverie to find the pendulum still spinning. So now he was having hallucinations. It had been so real.

  “So, I was a woman,” he said.

  “Yes,” the pendulum responded.

  “Did you put those images in my mind?”

  Again the answer was yes.

  This was more than a mere question and answer session. Paul had been fully immersed in a kind of waking dream but without the usual dreamlike qualities. He felt as though he had been reliving events that had really happened. The death scene could explain his unnatural fear of heights. He was sure that whatever, or whoever, was causing the pendulum to move and suffusing his conscious mind with images he could not rid himself of, was the Arab in the vision; the one who murdered him.

  Paul needed to think and to decide if he wished to continue with the pendulum experiments. He hadn’t been expecting anything like this. He closed his fist around the droplet, squeezing it in his hand and wished the Arab intruder away.

  He sat back and thought about normal things. He felt a little guilty because he had a deadline to meet and supper to cook. Since he had started to work from home he did most of the household chores, never to Kate’s exacting standards of course.

  Paul realized that he was starting to use the pendulum for explorations other than the spiritual cleansing system Nuttley had sold him. The little man had said nothing about visions or conversations with disembodied entities or dead people, except for warning him to be careful about intruders. It felt as though it was now the pendulum using him and asserting a degree of control. Paul wasn’t entirely happy with this although he remained curious. Perhaps he was acting as a natural antenna and the pendulum was like an aerial attracting and directing wavelengths of disembodied spirits into his mind.

  Paul could sense the beginning of a compulsion. He remembered the same intense curiosity when, as a student, he had become fascinated by the ouija board and seances. He developed a passion for them but still managed to retain a critical distance, never going all the way. Paul felt the same way now about ouija boards as he did about astrology, another practice he had dabbled in, casting the horoscopes of all his children.

  Was he just a kind of dilletante? Or were these mystical and new age experiences, although ancient practices, just the tip of the iceberg and was he playing with mysticism in the same cursory way that, in the West, yoga had been transmuted from being a spiritual discipline into being a new kind of exercise routine?

  He was a searcher by nature. At a very early age he had found himself out of step with most of the boys he knew. Yes, he enjoyed sports but was never that good. He never excelled.

  The truth about existence was something that he remembered pondering even then. Nobody he knew, even his parents or other adults, ever gave such fundamental questions a moment’s thought. He had felt acutely alone. Even then he had believed in his deepest, innermost self that he was somehow different, even special. Experience had since taught him that this feeling was probably induced by his isolation and as a prop for his ego. To be fair, there was nothing inherently wrong with spending a lifetime enmeshed in concerns about trivia and day-to-day problems. Nothing, except that it was self-serving and shallow and missed the whole point of life. Maybe he was just genetically programmed to be interested in the riddle of life and of death.

  He decided there wasn’t enough time to explore further and it was with a degree of regret that he put the pendulum and board away. Later, when Kate was dozing on the sofa and the television was flickering with its banal light and the kids were occupied elsewhere in the house, he would return to it.

  These divination processes were making Paul very contemplative. But he found that his interest waned as work and responsibilities got in the way. There was simply no way of knowing if the brain was just opening a synaptic connection to an area seldom activated or there were genuine spirit forms as individualities making contact: or indeed if they were one and the same.

  Later, he did slip back into the office and switched on the light. It was a small room and almost terminally untidy, although to Paul’s mind everything was in its correct and rightful place. His computer hard drive, other equipment and printer all blinked with red and green lights. Kate and he had decided to move from the city years ago, fed up with the rush and the grime and the lack of time; with the feeling that life was rushing by so fast you didn’t have time to stop and contemplate. They both fell in love with the forest and the nearby river that was glorious in the light of a full moon, etched like a silver snake in the middle distance.

  Paul had forged a career for himself basing himself at home but also getting assignments in various parts of the world while Kate had started her own craft business, making sculptures and garden decorations from willow. She prospered until cheap imports made it impossible for her to compete. Now she worked in local government. Paul often felt she resented having to give up her own business, working with her hands with natural materials instead of working in an office chained to emails and meetings.

  He sat there for a moment just wondering what on earth he was doing. He had used the pendulum continually ever since he bought it. It was exerting a kind of odd attraction, or web of compulsion over him that was not all that healthy. But, he could break free of it whenever he chose to. All he had to do was trash the pendulum and burn the instructions. In the same way he had just stopped dabbling with ouija boards and with casting horoscopes. He went through a brief I-Ching phase at one time but that, too, had ebbed. No doubt the same fate awaited the circling pendant in his hand. But not yet. He was still curious and still believed he could influence the pendulum to do his bidding.

  He did feel that a degree of ritual was appropriate. He spread out the chart before him smoothing it flat with his fingers, making sure it was positioned squarely on the desk and that there were no curled corners. He would go through the motions of establishing contact religiously, with a sense of reverence and occasion to put him in the right frame of mind. He would avoid going overboard however. He had had his bellyful of religion having been brought up as an intensely strict Catholic complete with intense retreats supervised by Jesuit brothers, first Fridays, Stations of the Cross, itchy scapulas round the neck and knee aching pilgrimages to Lourdes. He now had an ambivalent attitude to all religions but felt drawn more to Buddhism, if the truth be known. Religions had their place in the scheme of things and their higher values were truly spiritual but they had still been the root cause of some of the most horrific cruelty, wars and mind seduction the world h
ad ever known.

  The pendulum, sparkling in the reflection of the office desk light, hung from Paul’s fingers potent with life and energy. Paul tried to evoke a response by focusing all his mental power on a generated idea of his own. He thought hard about prosperity. He wasn’t rich and he wasn’t poor and neither was he avaricious but he could always do with more.

  The pendulum began to move, slowly at first, then with gathering momentum enscribing a huge circle before altering its route into a dead straight line and heading directly for the section of the board called Parallel Lives.

  This surprised Paul. He had never had any real thoughts about the notion of parallel lives. He brushed the fingers of his free hand through his hair. He recalled the sign over Nuttley’s stand. That had mentioned parallel lives and the premise that in some dimension maybe one second behind our own was another world just like this one but with subtle differences.

  Paul now felt a distinct presence of something individual at the other end of the pendulum communication system.

  “Is someone there?” he asked then realized how banal it sounded.

  The pendant spun to the left emphatically. Paul considered the best way to proceed. As with the ouija board, he wasn’t consciously aware of influencing the movement of the glass or of in this case the pendulum. But subconsciously, who knew? He wasn’t sure if he could make it slot perfectly into a narrow section on the chart without a great deal of effort and skill and keep it there dead on target moving to and from equally every time.

  “Are you from a parallel universe?” he whispered, somewhat embarrassed.

  “No,” answered whatever was trying to communicate.

  “Are you alive?” Paul asked.

  “Yes.”

  Paul felt an odd and peculiar sensation. Thoughts and images were trying to pop into his mind. He knew enough from his meditation practice about recognizing the emergence of a thought form. He was being asked in turn if he was alive. Okay, blink once for yes.