There is only one thing I am clear about: at some time, somewhere by the light of a lamp, I wrote out a promissory note at his order and signed it with my father’s forged signature. The writing was so like his that, as I stared at the paper before Herr Paris folded it up and put it away, I thought for a moment my father had signed it with his own hand.
Why did I do it? It seemed such a natural thing to do that even now, with the memory of the deed tormenting me, I cannot wish it undone.
Is it only one night that has passed since then or a whole generation?
I feel as if the actor had vented his spleen on me for a whole year of my life without ceasing. Then, finally, my lack of resistance must have made him realise there was no point in continuing his rage; somehow he must have convinced me that I could save Ophelia by forging the signature.
The only ray of light penetrating my feverish torment is that I am certain I did not do it to save myself from the suspicion of intent to murder.
How I managed to make my way home, whether it was already light or still dark, is a complete mystery to me.
I have a vague picture of myself sitting by a grave, weeping in desperation, and from the scent of roses that flows over me whenever I think of it, I almost believe it was my mother’s grave.
Or does it come from the bouquet of flowers there, on the counterpane?
Who can have laid it there?
‘My God! I must go and put out the street-lamps!’ The thought is like a whiplash on every nerve-end. ‘Is it bright day-light already?’ I try to jump out of bed, but I am so weak I cannot move a muscle.
Wearily I sink back into the pillows.
‘No, it’s still night-time’, is the thought that comforts me, for my eyes are suddenly plunged back into deepest darkness.
But immediately afterwards I can see the brightness again and the rays of the sun playing on the white wall. And once again I am overwhelmed by the idea that I am neglecting my duty.
I tell myself it is a wave of fever sweeping me back into the sea of delirium; but I am powerless to stop a familiar, rhythmical hand-clapping rising, like something from the dream world, and beating, ever louder, ever clearer, against my ear. Night and day alternate in time with the rhythm, faster and faster, night and day without any transition, and I have to run, run, to be in time to light the lamps, put them out, light them, put them out.
Time is rushing after my heart, trying to catch it, but it manages to keep its pulse one step ahead.
‘Now, now I am going to sink beneath the tide of blood’, I feel. ‘It is flowing from a wound in old Mutschelknaus’ head, pouring out between his fingers like a torrent as he clutches at it with his hand. Any second now I will drown in it.’ At the last moment I grasp a post that is fixed into the embankment, and hold on tight. As consciousness recedes, I clench my teeth in response to my one remaining thought, ‘Keep a firm hold on your tongue, otherwise in your delirium it will reveal that you forged your father’s signature.’
Suddenly I am more awake than ever I was by day, more alive than ever in a dream. My hearing is so sharp that I can hear the faintest sound, whether near or far.
Far, far above in the treetops on the other bank the birds are singing, and I can clearly hear voices murmuring their prayers in St. Mary’s.
Can it be Sunday?
Strange that the usual roar of the organ cannot swallow up the whispering in the pews. Strange that this time the loud noises cannot harm the soft, weak ones.
What are those doors banging in the house? I thought the other floors were uninhabited? That the rooms below were filled with nothing but dusty old junk?
Is it our ancestors who have suddenly come to life?
I decide to go down. Why shouldn’t I, I feel so fresh and full of vigour? Immediately I remember: to do that I would have to take my body with me and that is the difficulty; I can’t go down in the broad daylight to pay a visit to my ancestors in my nightshirt.
Then there is a knock at the door. My father goes over, opens it a little and says through the crack in respectful tones, “No, grandpapa, it’s not time yet. As you know, you can only come to him when I have died.”
This is repeated nine times in all.
When it is repeated the tenth time, then I know that it is our Founding Father outside. I know that I am right by the deep, respectful bow my father makes as he opens the door wide.
He goes out, and by the slow, heavy tread, accompanied by the tapping of a stick, I can hear that someone is coming to my bed.
I cannot see him, for I have my eyes shut. There is an inner feeling which tells me I must not open them. But through my lids, as clearly as if they were of glass, I can see my room and all the objects in it.
Our Founding Father pulls back the covers and places his right hand on my neck, the thumb sticking out at right angles to make it like a set-square.
He speaks in a monotone, like a priest saying the litany, “This is the storey on which your grandfather died and awaits the resurrection. The human frame is the house in which one’s dead ancestors live.
In some people’s houses, in some people’s bodies, the dead awake, before the time is ripe for their resurrection, to a brief, spectral life. Then the rumours fly of ‘haunting’, then the common herd talks of ‘possession’.”
He repeats the process, placing the palm of his hand with the thumb outspread on my chest. “And here your great-grandfather lies entombed.”
And so it continues, down the whole of my body, over stomach, loins, thighs and knees, to the soles of my feet. When he places his hands on them, he says, “And this is where I live. For the feet are the foundations on which the house rests; they are the root joining the body of your person to Mother Earth, whenever you walk.
Today is the day following the night of your solstice. This is the day when the dead within you begin their resurrection.
And I am the first”
I hear him sit down by my bed and from the rustle of pages being turned from time to time I guess that he is reading to me from the family chronicle, which my father mentions so often.
It comes to me in the tone of a litany, which lulls my outward senses but excites my inner ones to increasing, sometimes almost unbearable wakefulness:
“You are the twelfth, I was the first. We start counting with ‘one’ and we stop counting with ‘twelve’. That is the secret of God’s incarnation.
You are to become the top of the tree which sees the living light; I am the root, which sends up the forces of darkness into the light.
But you will be I and I will be you when the growth of the tree is complete.
The elder is the tree that in Paradise was called the tree of life. Even today legend has it that it possesses magic power. Cut off its top, its branches and its roots, plant it upside down in the earth, and lo! what was the crown of the tree will become a root, what was a root will put out branches, so completely is each of its cells imbued with the communion of ‘I’ and ‘you’.
That is why I have put it as a symbol on the coat of arms of our family. That is why it is growing as an emblem on the roof of our house.
Here on earth it is only a token, just as all forms are only tokens, but in the incorruptible realm it is the first among all trees.
Sometimes in the course of your wanderings, both here and on the other side, you have felt old: that was I, the foundation, the root, the Founding Father, that you could feel within you. We are both called Christopher, for you and I are one and the same.
I was a foundling, just as you were; but in the course of my wanderings, I found the great father and the great mother, losing the little father and the little mother, you have found the little father and the little mother, but not yet the great father and the great mother.
Thus I am the beginning and you are the end; when each has penetrated the other, then shall the ring of eternity be closed for our family. The night of your solstice is the day of my resurrection. As you become old, so I will become you
ng, the poorer you become, the richer I will be …
Whenever you opened your eyes, I had to close mine, if you closed yours, then I could see; thus it was until now. We stood facing each other like waking and sleep, like life and death, and could only meet on the bridge of dreams.
Soon all that will be changed. The time is approaching: the time of your poverty, the time of my wealth.
The night of the solstice was the watershed.
Anyone who is not ripe will sleep through it, or will wander the earth, lost in darkness; his founding father must lie entombed within him until Judgment Day.
There are those – they are the presumptuous ones – who believe in their body alone, and commit sins for their own advantage, the ignoble, the ones who despise their family tree; the others are those who, for the sake of an easy conscience, are too cowardly to commit a sin.
But you are of noble blood, and were willing to commit murder for the sake of love.
Doing good and doing evil must become the same, otherwise both will remain a burden, and one who bears a burden can never be a Freeman.
The Master whom they call the White Dominican has forgiven you all your sins, even your future ones, because he knew how everything would come to pass; but you deluded yourself into thinking it was in your power to commit a particular deed or not. He is, from time immemorial, free from both good and evil and therefore free from all delusion. But those, like you or I, who still delude themselves, load this burden or that on themselves.
We can only free ourselves from it after the manner of which I have told you.
He is the great crown of the tree that is to come, arising from the great source-root.
He is the garden; you and I and others of our kind are the trees that grow within it.
He is the great wanderer and we the lesser.
He descends from eternity to infinity; our path takes us from infinity up into eternity.
Anyone who has crossed the watershed has become a link in a chain, in a chain formed from invisible hands that never let each other go until the end of days. From that point on they belong to a community in which each one has a mission which is destined for him alone.
There are not even two among them who are alike, just as among the human animals on earth there are no two who share the same destiny.
Our whole earth is imbued with the spirit of this community; it is ever-present at all times, it is the living spirit in the great elder tree. It is the origin of all religions of all peoples and ages; they change, but it is unchanging.
Anyone who has become a crown and consciously bears within him the source-root, consciously enters into the community through the experience of the mystery that is called the ‘Dissolution with Corpse and Sword’.
In ancient China thousands upon thousands were initiated into this secret process, but only meagre reports have come down to us. Hear now some of them:
“There are certain transformations called Shi Kiai, that is the Dissolution of the Corpses, and others called Kieu Kiai, that is the Dissolution of the Swords. The Dissolution of the Corpses is the condition in which the form of the dead man becomes invisible and he himself reaches the rank of an immortal. In some cases, the body merely loses weight, or retains the outward appearance of a living man.
In the Dissolution of the Swords, a sword is left behind in the coffin in place of the corpse. These are the invincible weapons, destined for the last great battle.
Both dissolutions are an art which those who have advanced along the path communicate to the favoured among the younger followers.”
The tradition from the Book of the Sword, quoted above, says:
“In the method of the Dissolution of the Corpses it comes about that one dies and then comes to life again. It comes about that the head is chopped off and appears from one side. It comes about that the body is present, but the bones are missing.
The highest among the Dissolved receive, but do not act; the rest dissolve in broad daylight with their corpses. Their achievement is to become flying immortals. If they want, they can sink into dry ground in broad daylight.
One of these was a native of Hui-nan and was called Tung Chung Kiu. In his youth he practised inhaling spiritual air and thus purified his body. He was unjustly accused of a crime and was tied up in prison. His corpse dissolved and disappeared.
Liu Ping Hu has no name and no boy’s name. Towards the end of the days of Han he was the Elder of Ping-hu in Kieu-Kiang. He practised the art of medicine and came to the aid of his fellows in their illnesses and sorrows as if they were his own illnesses. Journeying on foot, he met the immortal Chu Ching Shi, who revealed to him the path of hidden existence. Later he dissolved with the corpse and disappeared.”
I could tell from the rustling of the pages that our ancestor passed over several pages before he continued:
“Whoever possesses the Cinnabar-red Book, the plant of immortality, the awakening of the spiritual breath, and the secret of bringing the right hand to life, will dissolve with the corpse.
I have read to you examples of people who have dissolved, so that your faith will be strengthened through hearing that there were others before you who achieved it. It is to the same end that the Christians’ Book tells of the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.
Now, however, I will tell you of the secret of the hand, the secret of the breath and of reading the Cinnabar Book.
It is called the Cinnabar Book because, according to ancient belief in China, that red is the colour of the garments of those who have reached the highest stage of perfection and stayed behind on earth for the salvation of mankind.
Just as we cannot comprehend the meaning of a book if we just hold it in our hand or turn the pages without reading, so we will not profit from the course of our destiny if we do not grasp its meaning. Events follow each other like the pages of a book that are turned by Death; all we know is that they appear and disappear, and that with the last one the book ends. We do not even know that it keeps being opened, again and again, until we finally learn to read. And as long as we cannot read, life is for us a worthless game in which joy and sorrow mingle. When, however, we finally begin to understand its living language, then our spirit will open its eyes, and will start to read, and will breathe with us.
This is the first stage on the path to the Dissolution of the Corpse, for the body is nothing other than congealed spirit; it dissolves when the spirit begins to awaken, just as ice melts in water when it begins to boil.
Everyone has a book of destiny, which is meaningful at the root, but the letters in it will dance around in a confused jumble for those who do not take the trouble to read them calmly, one after the other, just as they are written. Such people are the hasty, the greedy, the ambitious ones, those who use duty as a pretext, those who are poisoned by the delusion that they can mould their destiny to a different shape than the one Death has written in their book.
But anyone who can ignore the idle turning back and forth of the pages, who is moved neither to tears nor to joy but who, like an attentive reader, concentrates his mind on understanding it word by word, will find a higher and higher book of destiny opened for him, until he is one of the elect, for whom the Cinnabar Book, that contains all secrets, lies before him.
That is the only way to escape from the dungeon of fate. Any other attempt is merely a vain, tormented wriggling in the snares of Death.
The poorest in life are those who have forgotten that there is a freedom beyond the dungeon cell, those who, like birds that have been born in a cage, are content with a full feeding bowl and have forgotten how to fly. For them there can be no release.
Our hope is that the great white wanderer, who is on his way down into infinity, will succeed in breaking their bonds.
But they will never look on the Cinnabar Book.
Those for whom it is opened will leave no corpse behind in a higher sense as well; they will drag a lump of earth into the spiritual realm and dissolve it there.
Thu
s they will take part in the great task of divine alchemy; they will transform lead into gold and infinity into eternity.
Hear now of the secret of spiritual breath.
It is stored up in the Cinnabar Book, but only for those who are root or crown; the ‘branches’ have no part in it, for if they were to understand it, they would wither on the spot and fall from the trunk. The great spiritual breath does, indeed, flow through them – for how could even the smallest being live without it? – but it passes through them like a wind that sets them in motion but does not stop.
Physical breath is only its counterpart in the external world.
Within us, however, it must settle, until it has become a shining light, penetrating every mesh of the net of our body and uniting with the great light.
How that is to happen, no one can teach you, it is rooted in the most delicate area of our sensibility.
It says in the Cinnabar Book, “Here lies hidden the key to all magic. The body can do nothing, the spirit can do everything. Put away everything that is body, and when your self, your ‘I’, is completely naked, it will start to breathe as a pure spirit.
One will begin after this fashion and another after that, according to the belief into which he was born; the one through an ardent longing for the spirit, the other by persevering in the certainty that he was born of the spirit and only his body is of the earth.
Anyone who has no religion but believes in the tradition, must accompany all the labours of his hands, even the least, with this constant thought, ‘I am doing this for the sole purpose that the spiritual essence within me shall begin to breathe.’ Just as the body transforms the earthly air you have inhaled, without your being able to see the secret place of its labours, so does the spirit, in an incomprehensible way, weave with its breath a royal garment of purple for you: the cloak of perfection.
Gradually the spirit will penetrate your whole body in a deeper sense than with those humans who remain in the animal state. Anywhere its breath reaches, the limbs will be renewed, to serve a different purpose than before.
The White Dominican Page 9