Man Without a Shadow

by Colin Wilson

  I was glad of this. I didn’t want Kirsten to feel compelled to break with me. We parted on good terms, and he referred to Gertrude as his ‘guardian angel’.

  Cunningham was beginning to feel that he was losing his hold over all three of us. Oliver’s association with Christine had temporarily solved that problem—Oliver no longer talked about getting away—but he was aware that both Diana and Gertrude were using their influence against him. So one day, he asked me to go and see him. He told me that he had decided to leave for his island immediately after Christmas, when the signs of the heavens would be propitious, and wanted myself, Kirsten and Oliver to join him there. He realized that Kirsten wanted to stay in London until his opera was revised, and that Oliver would probably not want to leave Christine, but he was relying on me to go with him and prepare the place to become a great cultural centre.

  I was naturally dubious, being happy enough where I was, especially since finishing my book was a full-time job, and I needed to be within reach of the British Museum reading-room.

  Cunningham said: ‘I realize why you hesitate. You are not convinced that it isn’t all self-delusion. Weren’t you convinced by my last demonstration?’ (meaning the long conjuration in his room). I agreed that both Diana and I thought there had been another person in the corner of the room, but that neither of us could be certain.

  He said: ‘In that case, you need more demonstrations. Suppose, for example, I could prove to you that the sexual orgasm can be prolonged for several minutes—perhaps even as long as half an hour?’

  The end of it all was that I agreed to help him in a series of experiments that would last about a week. He explained to me that there are drugs that can produce an impression like a sexual orgasm for a long time—at least an hour—but that these drugs are dangerous. They burn up the body as a candle flame consumes the candle, leaving no inner resources of energy. On the other hand, if a man could learn to tap his inner reservoir of power, this intensity would leave him completely unaffected. This, Cunningham said, was the only safe way. The other way usually turned into some dangerous disease in a matter of weeks—usually consumption. He pointed out that this is true of sex generally. Sometimes an act of sex can leave you completely exhausted and drained; yet under different circumstances—or with a different partner—the appetite seems to increase in a curious way, as if it is fed by some inner spring of power, rather as a well continues to remain at the same level no matter how much water is taken out of it.

  All this intrigued me. I have already mentioned my belief that the whole key to human existence lies in the sexual orgasm. I have always felt that if only it could last longer—minutes instead of seconds—I would have the whole secret of human existence. Life would cease to be pointless; freedom would no longer be a burden—the awful freedom of a man lost at sea with no compass. The first man to achieve such a vision would be as distinct from all other men as man is from the gorilla. Light would shine from his head; his whole presence would radiate a power that could be sensed in all his neighbourhood. The wave carries us to a height, poises us there for a moment, then swoops down again; but how if we could cling on to some ledge while we are up there, and be left on it when the wave subsides? Man would be permanently on a new plane of being.

  It seemed to me that if Cunningham knew some technique to increase that intensity, he might provide me with my ‘key’, even if he possesses no real power or knowledge of his own.

  Carlotta was still ostensibly living in Kentish Town, but in fact she spent most of her time at Cunningham’s. It soon became obvious that she was getting on his nerves; I saw her several times in tears, and one day she appeared with a swollen cheek and a partially-black eye. This did not seem to affect her feeling for him; I have an idea that when he wasn’t blacking her eyes, he was spending hours in ‘sex-magic’, and that even in hitting her, he was only responding to her taste for being dominated. For some reason, I have always felt sorry for Carlotta. There are certain women who seem born for lives of vague dissatisfaction. Too strong to make a man their whole centre of gravity, and yet too weak to stand alone and create, they invite unhappiness. And when they choose, they choose the worst possible man, as if out of a deliberate perverseness. I doubt whether Carlotta responds deeply to anything in Cunningham; she is fascinated by his confidence, his apparent certainty of purpose, but it’s as irrational as a moth’s attraction to light. And she’s puzzled when the glittering thing that attracts her shows its dark side and blacks her eye.

  I stopped going to Cunningham’s because of the possibility of meeting Gertrude. Not that I felt any dislike for her, but I felt guilty about her. But this had the effect of making Cunningham anxious to show me ‘results’ that would turn me into a full-time disciple. Also, he didn’t like the way that I was settling down with Diana—quietly and unexcitingly, without quarrels or even disagreements. I have always felt, with Diana, that it makes very little difference to her whether she is married to me or Kirsten—or anybody else, for that matter; she’s a quiet, good girl who takes life as it comes, and wants security. I sometimes find this passiveness exasperating—but then, it fits in with my own methodical character.

  Finally, on the tenth of December, Cunningham told me that I was to prepare for a revelation on the following night. He told me that I should ideally fast for two days—but that, if I didn’t want to fast completely, I should at least confine myself to bread and butter and milk—on no account meat or alcohol. He also advised me to read the Marquis de Sade, explaining that although Sade is a fool who lacks the capacity for thinking clearly, his belief in a total freedom from morality is a good mental preparation for magic.

  I was more than dubious about all this. To begin with, I was now working in the reading-room during the day. After three hours’ reading and writing, I find myself getting tense and nervy, and the ideal remedy is a beef sandwich and a pint of bitter in the pub across the road. But apart from that, all this talk about leaving England to live on an island bored me. I realized that I owed the acceptance of my book to Cunningham, and yet now I was working on it, the idea of going on a wild goose chase to Sardinia was intolerable. Besides, I had Diana, and in many ways felt more contented than I’d been for years. So I suppose I was unconsciously willing Cunningham’s ‘magic’ to fail and release me from my obligation.

  On the Thursday (the tenth), I met Radin and Wise in the Museum. I wanted to let Radin know that I was not a party to Cunningham’s roughness the other night—in fact, I’d been feeling guilty about it ever since it happened. But he didn’t seem to bear me any grudge, and immediately asked me to go and have a drink. I said I couldn’t—that I wasn’t drinking. I didn’t intend to tell them the reason, but Wise asked immediately: ‘Are you fasting for some initiation?’ I admitted that Cunningham wanted to impart certain secrets to me and wanted to get me into the right frame of mind. I thought I was being tactful, but my remarks seemed to drive Wise to a fury. ‘Our secrets!’ he said, grinding his teeth. ‘The secrets he swore never to reveal.’ I tried to smooth things over, but it was hopeless. I finally agreed to go to the pub with Radin simply to get away from Wise (I drank orange squash). I tried hard to convince Radin that I thought he was on the wrong track with Cunningham—that Cunningham had no real magic powers, and was only a harmless crank. To convince him, I told him in detail about the ceremony of the other night, feeling that, since he knew half of it, there was no point in trying to hide the rest. But I also tried hard to convince him that Cunningham’s main interest was in feeling himself ‘in charge’ of a situation—arranging things for his friends and arranging their lives. I told him about Kirsten’s opera, about my own book, and finally, about Christine. I took care not to mention Cunningham’s expectations about this Christine situation, but simply told him that he had brought them together again in a thoroughly disinterested way. Then I noticed that he was listening with his eyes on the table-top, as if completely
disinterested, and I knew this to be a danger signal—that he was not looking at me because he didn’t want me to see that he was recording every word. So I dropped the subject, and declined to start it again. I left Radin—on friendly terms—an hour later.

  I spent part of my time reading de Sade, but found him boring. All his gleeful talk about incest, rape and murder struck me as schoolboyish. But here again, I was made aware of elements in Cunningham’s character that he is clever enough not to show. For example, his disregard of other people, his capacity for cruelty. I had only seen this briefly, or been left to infer it from his treatment of Carlotta, his ‘sacrifices’, etc. But I am unobservant, and always think the best of people until the worst is too obvious for me to miss. But reading Sade made me aware that my own habit of mind is completely foreign to Cunningham—a rather cautious and scientific approach, a deliberately cultivated habit of bourgeois living to counterbalance my tendency to lose myself in dreams or abstractions. There is something of Nero about Cunningham—a desire to set the world on fire with a torch and then watch it burn. I became aware of all this as I read Sade. It is extreme romanticism—impatience with all restraints, the desire to reach the stars with one leap, and a muddled thinking that concludes that the reluctance to commit murder and rape is only another form of slavery.

  I didn’t tell Diana too much about Cunningham’s plans, hoping that he wouldn’t expect her to take part in the ceremony. But early on Friday evening, he came up to our room and told me that I shouldn’t eat anything for the rest of the evening. As Diana was cooking supper, I found this tiresome. However, I ate a few water biscuits with cheese when he’d gone. He said I could drink now, as it would be a suitable preparation for the ceremony, but I decided not to, since I hadn’t eaten much all day. Cunningham also said that he wanted Diana to come; I knew she was unwilling, but that she didn’t like to openly oppose him. Finally, we went over there at about ten o’clock. On the way up, I met Oliver on the stairs, and he asked us to go into his room. Christine was fast asleep in bed. Oliver was worried; he said that Christine had been to Cunningham’s for tea, and that Cunningham had offered to hypnotize her. She had gone to sleep and answered some questions—rather incoherently—but when he tried to wake her, she went on sleeping. Cunningham said that this was common in cases of suppressed hysteria: the subject has a subconscious desire to stay in the hypnotic trance because certain deep inner forces are allowed to escape. I immediately suspected a more simple explanation—that Cunningham had put some kind of drug into her tea, and used the hypnotism business as an excuse. However, I didn’t tell Oliver this—he was worried enough already about how to get her home. It was long past the time when she was supposed to go home, and he couldn’t take her himself, for obvious reasons. He had tried ringing Gertrude, to get her to take Christine in her car—Gertrude could fabricate some excuse, and Christine’s family knew her as a social worker—but got no reply.

  I suggested ringing her again; I went down to a public telephone; but I also got no reply. What puzzled me was Cunningham’s motive in drugging her. It was Diana who saw the explanation—that a scandal about her might compel Glasp to leave the country—especially since he had already been accused of assaulting her by her father. Even so, this explanation seemed to me rather far-fetched, because probably all that would happen would be that Christine would return home late, get into trouble with her mother, and perhaps not be allowed to see Oliver again. This wouldn’t necessarily make Oliver willing to go to Sardinia.

  We decided to ask Cunningham if he couldn’t get her out of her ‘trance’. I even suggested to Oliver that he should promise Cunningham to go out to Sardinia for a few weeks—after all, he couldn’t be compelled to stay. So I went up to Cunningham’s room, and found him sitting with Kirsten and Carlotta, both pretty high. I persuaded Cunningham to go down to see Oliver. I felt pretty constrained with Kirsten there, and it was obvious that Diana didn’t like the situation any more than he did. Finally, she came in and sat down in a corner of the room, then whispered to me: ‘I’m going home soon.’ We helped ourselves to gin, having nothing better to do. After twenty minutes or so, I decided to go down and see what Cunningham was up to, and warn him that Diana wanted to leave. I found Christine sitting up in bed, looking quite happy but very dazed; she said she felt wonderful. Cunningham had apparently produced this effect by stroking her forehead and reciting incantations. We got her out of bed and asked her if she could walk, but she promptly sat down and began to giggle. Then she said she wanted to stay in Oliver’s bed, put her arms around his neck and began to kiss him—to his obvious embarrassment. Then she got back into bed. Oliver talked to her about her mother, but she only said: ‘I don’t care.’ We made two more attempts to get her to walk, but the third time, she simply went back to sleep. I suggested calling a taxi and sending her home, but this was obviously no solution. Glasp was in despair—was afraid that the police were probably already searching for her, and that this would provide her father with a perfect excuse to get her away from her mother. Finally, Cunningham said he could suggest only one thing: that they should take her upstairs, and he would try to bring her back to consciousness by ‘magical means’. Glasp didn’t like this idea, but finally agreed, and Cunningham made various passes over her forehead, to guarantee that she wouldn’t wake before the ceremony was over. It was only his assurance that Christine wouldn’t know about the ceremony that made Oliver agree. Cunningham picked her up and carried her upstairs. There she was laid on the bed, and Cunningham explained the situation to Kirsten and Diana. He then asked Diana to undress Christine. Oliver immediately said that he couldn’t allow this. Cunningham said that he couldn’t perform a magic ceremony if Christine was dressed—it might bring her into great danger. Oliver said that in that case they wouldn’t perform the ceremony at all, and he started to shake Christine and trying to wake her. I could see Oliver was getting hysterical, so I joined with Cunningham in persuading him that it made no difference if Christine was asleep. So we left Diana and Carlotta to get her undressed, while Cunningham got out his black robes, drew pentacles on the floor, lit candles on the altar, and started to burn incense. He also told me that I would have to take off most of my clothes, but that I could keep on my trousers and shirt. He then dropped a small quantity of some brown powder into a glass of gin, and told me to drink it down. Oliver refused to drink his, until Cunningham told him that he would either have to participate in the ceremony or go out of the room. He then agreed to drink the stuff. I noticed no immediate effect except a burning sensation on my tongue. But within a matter of minutes I felt as if I’d drunk a quart of whisky—this may have been the effect of gin on an empty stomach.

  Cunningham now told Diana that she would have to strip and put on the red robe; she was unwilling, but by this time the atmosphere was so electric that she didn’t make much objection. I noticed that Carlotta made no bones about undressing in the middle of the room, and putting on her robe. Glasp looked quickly in the opposite direction when he saw her, and said: ‘I say, Cunningham, I hope there’s not going to be any sex?’ Cunningham said grandly: ‘Of course there’s going to be sex. The ceremony couldn’t be performed without it.’ But he pointed a sort of black wand at Christine and said: ‘Don’t worry, she won’t be touched.’ This seemed to reassure Oliver, and he even took off most of his clothes until he was also wearing only a shirt and trousers. Cunningham then gave us both short silk jackets to wear—they were bright blue and yellow, and looked as if they’d been used in a pantomime of Aladdin.

  Carlotta was helping herself very freely to the gin, and also to the brown powder. This had an almost immediate effect of plunging her into a condition of ecstasy—she sat on a chair, stretched out her arms, and looked as if she was being carried up to heaven by angels.

  Cunningham said: ‘I can feel evil currents. We must hurry.’ He gave me the same parchment as before, and Oliver another copy of it, instructing us to call the re
sponses alternately.

  It was now about midnight, and Oliver was obviously anxious about getting Christine home as quickly as possible. He asked Cunningham if we couldn’t hasten the ceremony, and Cunningham agreed. He warned us all that we must stay inside our pentagrams whatever happened. Diana, who had been changing in Oliver’s room, came in with her robe on, and was given the same task as before—keeping the tripod fed with incense. Cunningham poured out her gin, then looked into the jar containing the brown powder, and said: ‘Who’s been taking this?’ I pointed to Carlotta, and he said: ‘Oh Christ, why didn’t you stop her?’ I said I didn’t know anything about it and asked him what it was, but he seemed too worried to reply. He asked her if she felt all right, and she said (without opening her eyes) ‘Oh, beautiful, BEAU-tiful!’ So Cunningham said: ‘We’d better begin.’ I thought he looked anxious.

  As Christine was on the bed where they usually practised their ‘sex-magic’, he spread a kind of quilted blanket on the floor, and made Carlotta lie on it. Kirsten had fallen into a drunken doze by the fire; he was wakened up, made to half-undress like Oliver and myself, and given one of the blue jackets to wear. He wasn’t given anything to read, but was told to repeat a formula in a loud voice if any evil influences appeared. It sounded like: ‘Omfalu gadoris tvasem abishthu’—a language I don’t recognize—but I wouldn’t vouch for my accuracy here.

  They then proceeded exactly as before, with the chanting, the kissing of Carlotta’s navel and breasts, and the act of ‘sex-magic’. I now suspected that the brown powder was a sexual stimulant, because I found myself sexually excited in a way that I cannot describe. But it was not the normal excitement that I can control. There was less of a cerebral element in it: it felt unpleasant, as if I was being excited against my will, like being tickled so that it hurts. But it undoubtedly produced quite new sensations in me. I find this difficult to explain; but it felt as though my brain was like a permanently-opened eye. Half an hour before, I had felt sleepy; now I had a strange, naked sensation inside my head as if I could never again hope for sleep, and a realization of what it would be like to get more and more tired and yet be unable to fall asleep. I also felt an unpleasant sensation as if I was on waves. I usually associate this with getting drunk and feeling sick, but in this case, there was no sensation of physical sickness—just a weird feeling of being in a boat on the sea.