Fire in the Abyss

by Stuart Gordon

  What did Gilbert do while Tari pursued her work which many seemed to recognise as valuable? Well, Gilbert was busy turning into Humf the Idiot, taking pleasure where it was offered and despising it when it was over, continually comparing the present unfavourably with the past, clinging to the night. It was remarkable how many women, and some men, wished to sleep with this man who claimed to have been the brother of Sir Walter Raleigh and to have personally known Good Queen Bess—and remarkable too how much advantage I took of all this while getting so little pleasure from it. It was remarkable how much I ate, drank, and slept, and how little attention I paid to what was going on. It’s not good enough to claim I was still in shock. Perhaps, but in that case we might all claim that the shock of being born is enough to excuse us whatever we do in our lives. For months there were friendly strangers in two dozen cities to take care of my needs. Many people took risks and put themselves out for us, and even if some wished almost to deify Tari (ancient Egyptian priestess! Strong magic, man!), most knew what I had forgotten and only now begin to remember—appearance is not what counts. They were willing to admit the worst as well as to claim the best about their energetic and self-obsessed culture. How can I fault them? Americans are good enough at faulting themselves, in many cases, and are often alive to the problems of their imperial power. No one nation or system holds a monopoly on wickedness or righteousness, and most of the people I met forgave me my arrogant disdain, my disbelief in their belief.

  So, I played the fool while Tari worked, disregarding what she did, while at the same time (without admitting it) depending on her for my balance, having no real assurance of myself.

  Soon enough I found this out.

  The tragedy began in Chicago.

  We spent Christmas week as guests of a poet and his strikingly beautiful wife who was involved with Wicca, this being a modern inheritance of the Old Religion which in my day was known, denounced, and persecuted as witchcraft. Now, I found, though witches are no longer burned, they are often the butt of those kind of jokes which men like to level against women. Whether or not this is preferable depends on the urgency of your desire for martyrdom. At any rate, during these months I learned, despite myself, of the hidden tradition of knowledge which has run through the centuries from long before Tari’s time to this: a lunar way, not opposed to solar masculine science and reason, but aspecting it with intuition and dream—and much of Tari’s work was and is involved with this urgently necessary Marriage of Sun and Moon. But, as I say, I avoided all this, and, like Doubting Thomas, believed only what I wished to believe, which was not much, and this because I was afraid. I have heard it said how in the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King: well, I fear that for too long I chose to be among the blind.

  I’ll call our hosts John and Jane. It was not their fault. The snowball had grown too large.

  One evening just after Christmas and a year since our escape, over fifty people gathered to meet us. It was not an open house, but by no means everyone knew everyone else. Some of those present were well-known: there was a famous pianist, a bestselling writer, a high-energy physicist whose work had led him in an occult direction. Sylvia of KRONONUTZ was there too: we were glad to see her.

  The evening began well enough, yet I had trouble with a supercilious academic who grilled me to learn if my “racist imperialist” attitudes had changed now that I had tasted my own medicine; with a man who couldn’t believe that I’d never met Shakespeare or Marlowe; with a woman who wanted to know what I was doing afterwards—and so on, and on, until soon enough I joined the larger group round Tari.

  She was splendid that night in a long blue dress. Her snowy hair had grown out considerably, contrasting with the coppery highlights of her sharp, animated face. She wore no jewelry or emblems, and needed none, for her eyes were jewels enough, as I had to admit despite the reserve I’d developed. There was something almost transfigured about her that night; a quality attracting people like moths to a flame. All afternoon she had been closeted with a group, leading them on a mythic journey through their own brains to what she called “The Seat of Isis in the Temple,” which as I understand had something to do with the pituitary gland, and the teaching of self-control of hormonal secretion—all of it beyond me, as I demanded.

  Now, still fresh and enthusiastic, she was speaking in her low quiet voice of the need in a healthy society for understanding of how the mythic sphere of mind works in the everyday, and of how in the world today there is generally poor recognition of such things even when transparently clear, as in the recent “long live the king; the king must die” spectacle of President Richard Nixon; a crippled tyrant who (as I heard) confused himself with his office to such ill effect that his sacrifice was demanded and consummated by the people.

  “Some tell me,” she said (for I remember it plainly now, as if I am in that room again and listening to her now), “that Americans and Russians and so on no longer have kings and such. Not so! Changing the title and means of accession does not do away with the function, though it endangers understanding of what’s involved. Kings and presidents are representatives on earth of the inner organisation of individuals: society and ruler reflect one another. This has not changed much. Over three thousand years separate my time from this, but what is that? We are all in the boat of millions of years: do you really think your basic needs and capacities so different from those who went before you? If so, why permit presidents and rulers? Why is the predominant understanding so Roman, with spirit denied and material power elevated above all else? Why are the blind exalted to confirm the blind in the virtues of blindness? Where is the spirit of your Constitution, which was set out by initiates? Why is the secret wisdom still secret, disregarded by many as fabrication and fantasy, unknown to most? None of these things must be hidden anymore! Is this a new message? No! It is two thousand years old! Christ proclaimed it, that from henceforth initiation was open to all, that divinity is revealed in humanity, that religions which deny each other or which refuse to explain themselves are not religions at all, but imposture! Did he not make it plain? And did not the institutions sprung up in his Name then proceed to hide it all over again? Yes, I hear the Churches have brought some good, but for the most part what have they done but wear the outer garment while persecuting the heart, damning and demonising those very traditions from which the Christ emerged? And how do I know these things, I from so long ago? By reading in books? Certainly—I have learned much since the Hawk brought me here—but there are other sorts of books that were written long ago, and not in words. Words are but the outer seal of truth that awaits progressive fulfillment through the ages. True prophets are true scientists who see the shape of things eternal that descend into human embodiment to work their passage through into what is realised on earth.

  “Now, in this age, much has been realised and mastered in the physical world by development of intellect and individual capacity. This is good and necessary—but the price is heavy: other things have been forgotten, distorted, cast down. Now it is time for us to recollect our denied faculties, to pursue a general establishment of that Inner Light which the persistence of gravity and ignorance will always drag down into selfish darkness if not firmly opposed. There is no easy victory. Only fools without sense of history can even hope for it. The Boat has far to go yet: this age is but a particular note in the progression. History spirals between what we perceive as opposed extremes: the pendulum now is at a critical point, for the unconscious and untrained creativity of the species has materialised demons on the earth. But there is a new principle that beckons, demanding recognition, for Light is born out of Dark. The doors are opening again, and if we refuse to go through them, then much will be lost. The technological Modern is not to be cast away, but it must seek balance through the rediscovery of most Ancient wisdom in heart and mind. Individualism and Socialism are curses without the balance of each other; so too are men and women! The Female Principle will be restored! Women’s Rights are not enough; they do
but ape male error. Initiation is what is required! A new Child is manifesting! The birth may come about in chaos or in reverence—the choice exists: everyone must decide. History is a vast alchemy of transfiguration: we are the alchemists; our Work is ourselves and the raising of Nature. Why are we here, if not to learn to carry out functions that the eternal and ethereal Principles alone cannot express?

  “Some speak of History as accident! They deny Intelligence to that which grants it in us. How absurd! How irresponsible! If you put your hand in the fire and get burned, is that accident? If a stone is thrown in a pond, are the ripples accident? If ignorant Caesar hungry for power presses a Vulcan button and gets a result he did not expect, is that accident?”

  “And you,” she went on in the same quiet intense voice, turning to a man leaning on the wall behind her, “is it accident that you are here with that transmitter disguised as a pen in your jacket pocket?”

  She caught us all by surprise, but most of all she took aback the man to whom she’d turned. He was tall, saturnine, dressed in brown corduroy. He was the man who couldn’t believe that I’d never met Shakespeare or Marlowe. Now, unexpectedly at the centre of attention, he stiffened and stared back, his nostrils flaring as he breathed in deeply from the sudden shock of it.

  “Accident!” she murmured with soft emphasis, her eyes unwavering on him. “No, no accident! Does anyone here know this man?”

  It turned out that nobody did.

  He was trying to break her gaze, but could not.

  ‘Take out your pen” she said, “and show it to us.”

  His struggle was obvious. His face grew flushed, he began to shake all over. Yet his unwilling hand crept slowly to the inside pocket of his jacket and drew out what looked like a black fountain pen. Somebody took it from him. The top was unscrewed, and to our consternation it was found to be a radio gadget which would have transmitted her every word… except that it was broken, the components fused together, melted as if by great heat.

  “Your masters will be wondering why they haven’t heard from you,” Tari told him. “You can go and tell them why… in a little while… if you can remember what you were doing and where you were.”

  Then she put him out of mind and turned to the rest of us, and he stood there dazed, apparently frozen, as she told us we must all leave at once in case the house was raided.

  She and I were driven in different cars to someone’s house near Indianapolis. We stayed there a week, including New Year.

  The sudden threat unbent me towards her again. I was confused and felt no power in me to deal with this nemesis closing in. How could we fight it? I felt there was nothing under my feet at all.

  One night I lay abed, and suddenly felt that old familiar golden bubbling in the mind… then I saw her, raven-haired. She regarded me for a moment… then her face dissolved and abruptly I felt myself pulled, out of myself, and next… I was high in the sky, soaring like a great bird, looking down on a world of tumult and change, the west all dark, but the glow of a rising sun in the east.

  I felt horrid vertigo and resisted this, and so just as abruptly crashed down, back into myself, utterly shaken.

  Disturbed, I went to her room. She sat crosslegged on the carpet. Her face was grave. I paced. She asked me to sit down.

  “Humfrey,” she said, “you still deny it, but the Hawk flies in you. You must live with it, for soon you’ll be on your own.” I was shocked. “What do you mean?”

  “Take my hands,” she said, extending them, and I did, though reluctantly. But her cool dry hold calmed me. “Now listen,” she said quietly, “my time here is almost up. I don’t want you to worry about it, for it happens to everyone, and I have already been through the Gate of Fear.” And she went on before I could speak. “The seed is sown, my friend, and the chasm will be crossed, though not easily. Many will not learn. They’ll die in terror, and the souls of some may be extinguished—but it will be crossed. Do you understand?”

  In confusion I fell back on the faith I doubted.

  “But why should their souls be extinguished? Christ made that unnecessary! He died for us all!”

  She smiled. “You are not responsible for your own soul? What nonsense! If one-tenth of these Christian churches were truly of Christ there would be much less confusion now! Humfrey, you and others have made yourselves the victims of ridiculous dogmas created by men who hid the inner truth to ensure their own power on earth!”

  “What ridiculous dogmas?”

  “Vicarious Atonement, for one—that Christ will save you no matter what you do so long as you say you believe. So, a murderer can be forgiven—but can the effect of the act be obliterated? What’s the value of forgiveness if nothing’s learned from it?”

  I thought on all my sins and I was frightened.

  “If so, then I am damned forever,” I said dully.

  “Rubbish! You’re human! You pay for whatever you do that goes against the flow of things—if not in one life, then in the next!”

  “Oh! You preach Pythagoras and metempsychosis!”

  “Did not Christ rise from the dead?”

  “Yes, but He was special! He—”

  “If he was special then is not every human son and daughter special? What did he do but demonstrate what every Son and Daughter of God can become and do? Oh, Humfrey, that fear in men which killed him kills him still! It will be a long time before all learn to take responsibility for themselves and make their own inner marriage without need of mediation. A long time.”

  “Then what?” I demanded. “When this fine marriage is made and we all govern ourselves without need of priests and presidents?”

  I felt angry. Now I see it was anger at myself.

  “I cannot say,” she said. “I don’t know it all. Humfrey, you don’t have to worry about the future. Deal with the present.”

  “Well, so what did the Dancer mean about the end of the Fourth World? What is to happen—in the present?”

  “I told you,” she said patiently. “We work towards self-responsibility so that the need of hidden elite groups is reduced!”

  “Spiritual socialism?” I asked bitterly.

  “More precisely, it is an-archy, meaning ‘without a ruler,’ or perhaps I should say, ‘without earthly ruler, ’ for it’s impossible to gain such a state without some common sense of things within and beyond, through which we are, in fact and always, united.”

  “Oh! The Golden Age! A myth! A fantasy! A dream!”

  “What else did you ever live for?” she demanded drily.

  “I would have been content with political governorship and material gold in the New World!”

  “No! You would not! It would have brought you no satisfaction! You would have gone on hunting this dream you now seem to despise!”

  “I do not despise it,” I told her sullenly, my eyes downcast. “It is simply that I no longer believe it possible to attain. The world now is a madness worse than anything I knew before. Good God, they have wonderful plumbing now, they can go nowhere very fast and say nothing to each other over great distances, and look where it gets them! Oh, they have made marvellous inventions, but…”

  “Humfrey, Humfrey!” Quite sharply she let go my hands. “Why do you insist on the dark side alone? Because you dream of better you see all that’s wrong with the world, but you don’t look far enough! Old structures grow rigid and crack apart so that new forms can be born, but they are all impermanent. Only the Great One is eternal and perfect—and That is beyond all the logic, reason, religion, science, and human experience that arises from It!”

  “So why are we here?” I demanded, stymied. “Tell me again!”

  “You don’t want to tell yourself? We are seedbearers, witnesses of history. In this age all ages merge and knowledge from all times is made known, so that men can make a choice, to proceed and manifest the Light on Earth at a higher level of civilised harmony than before—or commit mass suicide in despair. So, speak what you know the best you know, and go through
your doors when you come to them! There’s no going back, so remember it, for soon I’ll be gone, and I cannot tell you again, and it is not my business to do so!”

  This sent a chill down my spine.

  “But… can’t you avoid this… this…”

  “Only by deviating from the path I’m on.”

  “Well, then you should…” But I stopped, belatedly remembering the bold words I myself had spoken in better days. I felt lost, and stupidly asked her if she knew when? Or how? She shook her head, unsmiling, but I felt her great love and encouragement.

  “Humfrey, whatever happens, you will learn in time, and if the Hawk acts through you in ways that bring you hurt and confusion, then recall how once you were willing to risk everything for what you believed worth winning. You are not the fool you like to think and make yourself. You will take up the reins again.”

  I cannot and will not speak of it at length, but it happened like this: the next day we were taken to Omaha, all movements being carefully considered in advance. Tari dyed her hair black, but it made no difference: I think she did it only to convince others that she had a sense of caution, so they should not worry quite so much.