There was dismissive irony in Lipotin’s last sentence. He presumably has a fairly low opinion of my knowledge of Far Eastern mysticism, but he is wrong. At least I am well aware of the reverence in which the Yin-Yang symbol is held out there.
It is represented as a circle which a curving line makes into two parts, two pear shapes – the one red, the other blue – nestling against one another: the geometrical sign of the marriage of heaven and earth, of the male and the female principle.
I just nodded my head. Lipotin continued:
“The Yang sect believes that the secret meaning of the sign is the conservation of the magnetic force of the two principles instead of its waste through the separation of the sexes. The idea behind it is something like a hermaphroditic marriage ...”
Again it was like a bolt of lightning striking directly in front of me; so blinding was the brightness of its light I felt I must blaze up myself. – That I should wait so long for this illumination: Yin Yang – Baphomet! One and the same! ... One and the same!! – “That is the way to the Queen!” a voice within me called so loud that it was as if I could hear it with my external ear. At the same time a marvellous calm settled over all my excited thoughts and senses.
Lipotin had observed me closely; obviously he could see the change within me, could see my shock and the smile of certainty that illuminated my features, for he smiled, too.
“I see you are acquainted with the old belief in the mystery of the hermaphrodite”, he said, after a pause. “Well, in the Chinese monastery they told me that the contents of this red sphere induce the union with the female principle within us.”
“Give it to me!” I shouted – I commanded.
Lipotin became solemn.
“I must repeat that there is one strange circumstance connected with the gift of this sphere which, for reasons that I cannot understand, only came back to me a few moments ago. The monk who gave it to me insisted that I should destroy it if I decided not to use it myself; on no account was I to hand it over to another person unless that person specifically demanded it.”
“I demand it!” I quickly cried.
Lipotin did not bat an eyelid and continued:
“You know how we travellers treat the grotesque gifts of our half-savage hosts: on long journeys, such as I used to make, you collect all kind of things, so that you soon forget each individual item. You can hardly imagine how seldom I have felt any interest in the Yang monk’s sphere. You drop it in your bag with all the other rubbishy curios and continue on your journey. For my part, anyway, I have never felt the slightest urge to let my ‘Yin’ nestle up to my ‘Yang’ or to ask my female principle if she would like to complete the circle with me.” With a cynical grin on his face, Lipotin made a repulsive lascivious gesture, which I ignored. Impatiently I repeated:
“Can’t you hear: I demand it! With all my strength and in all earnestness, I demand it, as God is my witness!” I added, and was about to raise my hand to swear an oath when Lipotin interrupted me:
“If you insist on taking an oath on this, even if only as a joke, then you must take it after the manner of the Yang monks. Are you willing?” – – – When I agreed he made me put my left hand on the ground and say:
“I demand, and I accept the consequences that thou mayest be released from all karmic revenge.” – – I smiled; it seemed a rather silly piece of play-acting, even though at the same time I could not repress a feeling of revulsion.
“That settles the matter!” said Lipotin in a satisfied tone. “You must forgive my being so finicky, but as a Russian I am part Asiatic myself and would not like to be disrespectful towards my Tibetan friends.”
Without further ado he handed me the red sphere. After a brief search I soon found where the two halves were screwed together. – Was this not one of the spheres of John Dee and his apothecary Kelley? – The sphere opened up: in the hollow was a greyish-red powder, about enough to fill a walnut shell.
Lipotin was standing next to me. He gave me a sideways look and spoke in an undertone. His voice reached my ear as if from a great distance, in a strange, lifeless monotone:
“A stone bowl and a pure flame have to be prepared. Pour some spirit of alcohol into the bowl and light it. Empty the contents of the sphere over the flame. The powder must flare up. Wait until the spirit has burnt away and let the smoke from the powder rise. A Superior must be present so that the head of the neophyte ...”
I stopped listening to his whispering, took the onyx bowl I use as an ashtray and cleaned it out as carefully as possible given my haste, poured some spirit from the sealing-lamp, that I have on my desk, into the bowl, lit it, took the half of the red sphere with the powder and poured it onto the flame. Lipotin stood to one side; I ignored him. Soon the alcohol had burnt off. Slowly the remains in the bowl began to glow and smoulder. A cloud of greenish-blue smoke formed and rose curling up from the onyx bowl.
“Thoughtless and foolish, indeed”, I heard Lipotin say, and it sounded like a mocking cackle in my ears, “the old overhasty foolishness, wasting precious material without being sure that all the conditions which guarantee success are fulfilled. How do you know that one of the required Superiors is present to carry out the initiation? You are fortunate – undeservedly so – that one just happens to be present, that I just happen to be an initiated Dugpa monk of the Yang sect ...”
I could still see Lipotin, as from a great distance, and mysteriously changed, a figure in a violet cloak with a strangely formed, upright red collar, on his head a cone-shaped purple cap on which six pairs of glass eyes glittered; he approached me with a grin of satanic triumph distorting his mongoloid face. I wanted to call out “No!,” but I had lost the power over my own voice. Lipotin – or the red-capped monk behind me, or the devil in person or whoever it was – grasped me from behind by the hair with irresistible force and forced my face down into the onyx bowl and the incense rising from the red powder. A bitter-sweet aroma rose through my nostrils, and I was in the grip of an indescribable trepidation, I was racked by death throes of such long-lasting, excruciating violence that I felt the mortal terror of whole generations flow through my soul in an unceasing, icy stream. Then my consciousness was obliterated.
I have retained almost nothing of what I experienced “on the other side”. And I think I am justified in adding, “Thank God!” for the torn-off scraps of memory which swirl through my dreams like leaves in a storm are so steeped in horror that it seems a blessing not to be able to understand them in detail. All I have is a vague, dark memory of having seen and passed through worlds such as those Frau Fromm described when she spoke of the depths of the sea steeped in a dull greenish glow where she claims she met Black Isaïs. I, too, met something awful there. I was fleeing, terrified, from – – I think it was from black cats with gleaming eyes and gaping mouths shining white; my God, how can one describe half-forgotten dreams!
And as I was fleeing, numb with nameless terrors, one last, saving thought surfaced: “If only you could reach the tree! If only you could reach the Mother, the Mother of the ... of the red and blue circle – is that it? – you would be saved.” I believe I saw the Baphomet in the distance, high above glassy mountains, beyond impassable swamps and painful hazards. I saw Elizabeth, the Mother, waving to me from the tree – – I cannot remember what the gesture signified, but at the sight of her my racing heart was gradually soothed and the numbness left me. I woke feeling I had spent hundreds of years in the green depths.
When I looked up, my head still whirling, Lipotin was sitting before me, his gaze fixed upon me, playing with the empty halves of the ivory sphere. I was in my study and everything around was as it had been before ... before ...
“Three minutes. That is sufficient”, said Lipotin in a morose tone, his features haggard, as he put his watch back into his waistcoat pocket. I will never forget the puzzlingly disappointed expression on his face as he asked me:
“So the Devil didn’t take you, after all. That indicates a sound con
stitution. – Congratulations, anyway. I think from now on you will be able to use this coal with a certain degree of success. It is charged, that I have been able to establish.”
I bombarded him with questions about what had happened to me. It was clear I had been through one of the hallucinatory experiences that have always played such an important role in supposed magic practice. I had taken opium or hashish, I could tell by the mild headache and the slight feeling of nausea the noxious fumes had left me with.
Lipotin answered in monosyllables and seemed unusually sullen. He left after gabbling a few ironic remarks:
“You have the address; go to Dpal bar skyd. Become adviser to the Dharma Rajah of Bhutan, you’ve got what it takes. You will be received with the proverbial open arms. The worst trial is behind you. My respects, – Master!”
Then he hastily grabbed his hat and hurried off. I heard a polite exchange in the hall: Lipotin had met my housekeeper as she arrived back. Then the outside door shut and a moment later Frau Fromm was standing in the doorway, looking most agitated: “I shouldn’t have left you by yourself! I blame myself ...”
“But you have nothing to blame yourself for, dear Fr...” – The words died on my lips. I saw Frau Fromm recoil from me with a gasp of horror. “What is the matter, my dear?”
“The sign above you! The sign!” – she stammered hoarsely. – “Oh, now – everything – everything – is over for me.”
I just managed to catch her in my arms. She clung to me.
I bent over her, shocked; at the same time there welled up within me a feeling of pity, of closeness, a dark sense of guilt and obligation. I was torn to and fro by a vortex of unclear but all the more violent emotions. Instead of checking to see how she was, I kissed her like a man – – like a man who has practised celibacy for centuries. And she, her eyes closed, semi-conscious, kissed me back with a violence, a wild abandon I would never have suspected in this quiet, shy woman.
Suspected? My God, what am I writing? Would I have suspected it of myself? It was not willed, not intentional, nor had we been ambushed by our own sensuality. It was – fate, guilt, compulsion and primaeval necessity! – –
We are now both of us clear that Jane Fromont and Johanna Fromm, that I and John Dee – well, how shall I put it? – that we are a motif in the tapestry of the ages, a motif that will be repeated until the design is complete: I am the “Englishman” that Johanna had “known” in her split consciousness since her adolescence.
And that ought to be the end of it, in all conscience; a dual life story can emerge from the strange depths of its parapsychological cavern and run a more normal course. – Deep within me I feel the same as Johanna. This miracle has so taken hold of me that I want no other wife than Johanna, the woman to whom fate has bound me over the centuries.
But Johanna – we have had a long discussion on the matter, just now, after she woke from her faint – Johanna stands by her initial exclamation: everything is over between us, indeed was pointless, lifeless, cursed from the very beginning. Her hope is lost and all the superhuman effort of her love and sacrifice wasted, for the “Other Woman” was stronger than she was. She could unsettle and hinder the “Other One” but never, never, never could she defeat and destroy Her.
She told me what it was that had so frightened her when she came into the room: she had seen a bright, sharply delineated light hovering over my head; a light in the form of a diamantine crystal about the size of a man’s fist.
Johanna will not accept any explanation, however reasonable. She claims she knows it very well from her trances. She has been told, she says, that this sign indicates the end of her fate and the end of her hopes and nothing can persuade her to change her mind. She did not withdraw from my kisses, from my endearments; she assured me she was mine and would remain mine: “I am your wife of an older title than any other woman now living on earth can say of her wifely dignity.” At that I freed her from my arms. The nobility of her purity, shining with love, forced me down at her feet, and I kissed those feet, kissed them as if they were an ancient, ever-young relic. I felt like a priest before the image of Isis in the temple.
And then Johanna resisted me, almost in desperation she resisted me and my adoration, throwing her arms around wildly, sobbing and crying again and again: hers, hers was the fault alone, and it was she who should struggle and plead for mercy, for forgiveness and atonement for her sin; she was called upon to make a sacrifice.
I could not get her to say any more.
I realised the nervous excitement was too much for Johanna to bear. I talked to her to calm her down and, in spite of her resistance, put her to bed myself.
She slipped into sleep with my kisses on her lips, my hand in hers. Now she can rest in a deep sleep.
What will she be like when she wakes up?
The First Vision
My pen can hardly keep pace with all the experiences and apparitions that threaten to overwhelm me. I use the quiet hours of the night to record all that has happened to me.
When I had put Johanna – or should I write: Jane? – to bed, I returned to my study and, as has become my habit, completed my notes by recording the incident with Lipotin.
Then I took up John Dee’s Lapis sacer et praecipuus manifestationis and contemplated the stand and the inscription on it. Gradually my eye began to wander from the gold ornamentation to the oily surface of the coal itself. What then began to happen was similar – at least, so it seems to me in retrospect – to my experience when I looked into Lipotin’s Florentine mirror and dreamed I was standing at the station waiting for my friend Gärtner.
However that may be, after some time staring at the shining black surface of the crystal, I found I could no longer take my eyes off it. I saw – or rather, I did not so much see as feel I was in the middle of a herd of milk-white horses galloping wildly over a surface of green-black waves. At first I thought – and I might add that my thoughts were clear and rational –: aha, Johanna’s green sea! But after a short while I began to see the details more precisely and I realised that the riderless horses were rushing over night-dark woods and meadows like Woden’s wild hunt. At the same time I knew that these were the souls of the millions upon millions of men who are asleep in their beds whilst their souls, without rider, without master, are driven by some dark instinct to seek their far-off, unknown home – they do not know where it lies, they only sense they have lost it and cannot find it again.
I myself was a rider on a snow-white steed that seemed more real, more corporeal, than the milk-white horses.
The frenzied, snorting mustangs – they were like crests of foam on a stormy sea – crossed some wooded hills that disappeared below us in long waves. In the distance was the narrow silver ribbon of a meandering river.
A wide landscape opens out like an amphitheatre embroidered with ranges of low hills. The furious gallopade is heading for the river. In the distance the mass of a city begins to rise. The bounding shapes of the horses around me seem to dissolve into grey clouds of mist. – – Then, all of a sudden, I am riding through the bright sunshine of an August morning, across a stone bridge with tall statues of saints and kings on the parapet. On the river bank I am approaching modest dwellings huddled together in an ancient jumble with a few magnificent palaces towering above them and, so to speak, shouldering them to one side; but even these proud edifices are humbled by the immense bulk of a tree-covered hill crowned with ramparts pierced by the outlines of towers, roofs, battlements and spires. A voice within me cries: “HradcanyCastle!”.
I am in Prague, then!? – Who is in Prague? – Who am I? – What is going on all around me? I can see myself on horseback, scarcely attracting a second glance from the townsfolk and peasants who are likewise crossing the stone bridge over the Vltava, past the statue of Saint Nepomuk and on to the the Malá Strana, the ‘small side’ or lesser town. I know I have been commanded to appear before the Emperor Rudolf – Rudolf of Habsburg – in the Belvedere. Beside me, on a dapple-gre
y mare, rides my companion; in spite of the blue sky and scorching sun he is encased in a fur cloak of somewhat tarnished magnificence. The fur cloak is obviously the pièce de résistance of his wardrobe and he has donned it in order to make some kind of show before His Majesty. “A mountebank’s finery,” I think. It does not surprise me to find that I myself am wearing antiquated dress. How could it be otherwise! Is it not the Feast of St. Lawrence, the tenth day of August in the year of Our Lord, 1584. I have ridden back into the past, I tell myself, and find nothing odd about it.
The man with the mouse’s eyes, the low forehead and receding chin is Edward Kelley, whom I had difficulty in restraining from taking rooms in the inn at the sign of the Last Lantern, where the immensely rich magnates and Archdukes stay when they come to court. He it is who keeps our common purse, and he is as full of himself as a fairground quack. Completely shameless and correspondingly successful, he constantly manages to fill our coffers where a gentleman would rather cut off his hand or lay down in a ditch to die. I know – I am John Dee, my own ancestor; how else could the events of the journey since my flight from Mortlake be so fresh in my mind: I see our tiny ship tossed by a storm in the Channel, relive my wife’s mortal anguish as she clings to me and whimpers: “I will gladly die with you, John. Oh, how gladly will I die with you! Only do not let me drown alone, do not let me sink into the green depths whence there is no return!” – And then the miserable journey through Holland: lodgings and meals in the lowest taverns, in order to eke out our meagre funds; the torment of hunger and cold for my wife and child; a family of wretched vagabonds who would never have survived the rigours of the early winter of 1583 in the snow-covered north German plain without the sharp practices of our good apothecary.
The Angel of the West Window Page 23