Libertine Love Songs, A Collection of Poesy, Prosody, and Prose

by Ronny Knape

CHAPTER SIX

  “THE FORLORN WARRIOR, a misspent incarnation”

  Upon returning to consciousness, he found awareness of mental and spiritual realms only. Neither physical sensation nor sensual stimulation ascended to the new found, subliminal state of being. Rather than former impressions of darkness and a sense of the ponderousness of the void of nothingness, he felt himself to be surrounded and penetrated by a golden and diffused light. Dead to the senses, his vibrant and alive consciousness was receptive to a divine influx of instruction, spiritual teachings coming from on high, seeming to come from within, welling up from his interiors, from his own being. In a state of rapport, he listened to the still, small voice of his own conscience there to guide him.

  The law of karma impels each of us unerringly to the race and nation where will be found the cultural affinity and the national character most appropriate for the manifestation of that individual’s personality and character; those traits, tendencies, and talents that were dominant in previous lives. Thus, we are born ready fit for the homes, families, and societies most suitable for us as we go on in the business of personal growth and soul evolvement. Life situations might appear to be a matter of chance but these things are determined by who we are and what we have done for ourselves and in the service of others. We may fool the world. We may put up a good front and deceive public opinion. We cannot be false and disingenuous when we are sitting in judgment of ourselves and are summoned to answer for how we have lived.

  In the end, everybody knows the truth about themselves. We know where we belong. Any reward or punishment coming to us is determined by what we deserve. Unerringly, incarnation will be as the person and in the circumstances as should be!

  Tendencies, predilections, innate abilities, the flaws and defects of human nature; that which is us is who we will be! Therefore, our aim in life and the ideals we take unto ourselves are critical for proper development. The ideals and guiding principles in one life will be the circumstances of the next. Consequently, a wayfarer who is selfish, low class, vulgar, and irreverent shall be privileged to enjoyment of a repeat performance, staging his one-man show and he plays his part so well.

  The Doctrine of Karma

  As a man sows so must he reap. Each is the maker of his own destiny. For as a man may build to evil, he may build to good.

  Resistance of wrong thought and act and the alignment of one’s inner being with divine and creative impulses when these aspects appear here on earth is a necessary task of one who declares for truth and righteousness. Alignment of self with one’s higher impulses insures that the environment will be replete with opportunity for good.

  “ . . . Come forth! The day of Brahma dawns morning light revealing a revolving door opening, closing on another cycle of the living raised up from the dead. Spiraling onward, the wheel of Samsara will ascend to descend again.”

  Every one of us is inexorably drawn by the currents of destiny. We greet death to be born anew, to die again, over and over, again and again, from a living consciousness bathed in light to darkness in the obscurity of the tomb.

  “Now, relive your immediate past incarnation. This process of self-analysis will help so that you understand why things happen as they do, as they must! You must be brutally honest with yourself in this process of self-analysis. Honesty is necessary for self-realization. In the end you will be better prepared for that which will come your way. Review the past. Then, preview the future. In this vision of the future, see the opportunities that might present themselves to you and have foreknowledge of potential shortcomings and pitfalls for which you must be wary. Be warned and forearmed against trial and adversity. Though problems and suffering are inevitable you are being given the way to endure and rise up to your true nature and overcome weakness and want.

  “You are on a quest seeking your true self and the meaning of life. Born into a world of chaos and strife, your environment will prove to be unsettling as it is to be inured in conflict and contradictions. Normally, the quest for truth and meaning is fulfilling. At the end of a productive life, the seeker of goodness and truth will realize that he has gained deeper insight into the nature of life on earth. Deeper insight gives him inner peace and a spiritual cast of mind. In your situation, however, the benefit that might have been justified at one point in your life will be cancelled out by error in thought and deed. You make a conscious choice and turn from what you know is proper behavior and this decision has consequences. You no longer are worthy. The law of consequences automatically comes in to play. And it is your own judgment that you forfeit the guidance and protection that springs from the invisible realms.

  “Heredity and the fortuitous circumstances of the formative years had served you well giving the foundation of a culture for good. In youth’s blushing fullness, idealism was the key to your personality. Yet, dormant lay a restless impulsiveness that foreshadowed doom.

  “Compulsive urgency to restlessness was somewhat ameliorated by urgings for union, a total immersion in love. This inner condition of your psyche projected from the subconscious found expression in the form and features of your ‘heavenly bride.’ She is known to you as Laetitia, she of joy and delight. She is your childhood playmate.

  “The two of you were supposed to get married. The marriage was not to be as social upheaval and an adverse economy precipitated war leading to disaster and despair.

  “You are to be one among the millions adversely affected. You lose your home. You lose your family. You lose the girl you love. You try to fill the void in your life by indulging in unwholesome and riotous debauchery acquiring a craving for blood and lust. The savagery of combat and the electric thrill of forcing sex on women dominate your every thought. You leave a trail of blood and tears, of maimed victims and sexually abused women. This pathological penchant for destruction is to be your undoing. You emerge from this period of harsh and cruel sensuality as a depraved cynic. By outward appearances you seem unfeeling, as if you could care less. But the truth of the matter is that you are beset by a deep-seated guilt which cannot be shaken from its place inside you. Dissociation of identity causes one to be vulnerable and open to attack. Dissociation fosters susceptibility to the seductions of infernal powers. Debilitation from prolonged indulgence in unlawful passions makes you easy prey. Witchcraft’s beguilements are too much for your weakened will to resist. You give yourself over to fascination and end up possessed, body and soul, by unclean spirits. Your will power has been suppressed. Eternal damnation looms. You can save yourself only by harkening to the inner voice of conscience, but, that voice has been silenced.”

  The inner voice of his conscience had been silenced. Yet, faint murmuring in his heart stirred a lost memory. He had a vision of a girl he never married but whose memory bore the sweetest aroma of goodness and of hope. This girl, Laetitia, meant more to him than anyone or anything.

  She had been with him from the first days he could remember. He called her ’sister.’ She is a symbol of his higher idealism. She is a projection of his innermost self. He thought only she could save him, only she could help. He did not understand that it was not she who compelled him to be idealistic. Rather, nobility and goodness are innate qualities inspired by the soul and not birth nor upbringing.

  These subtle distinctions are ambiguous requiring explaining which will come as the intricacies of personal evolvement are set forth. Just know this: the ’spiritual bride’ that fills every child and every mature and hardened man with longing in his primal scream in the darkness of night, in pre-dawn whispering to self of self ’s love songs, in unspoken and wistful prayer is, has been, and forever will be none other than himself, his one true self.

  The voice falls silent. It is now apparent. One finds union, meaning, and purpose in life only through the process of self-examination. Happiness and peace of mind will come with self-realization when one realizes that he, and he only, is to account for the unfolding of destiny.

  Introduction to Warrior

  Among h
is early memories: those dream visions born on another plane, the transitional plane during an interval of time when one ‘dies’ to the old ways and is born into a fresh physical sheathing which clothes and conceals the finer vibratory vehicles that make up the whole; the body is penetrated and composed of material, etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual essences. To the pragmatic and materialistic, these essences, being immaterial and unobservable by the objective consciousness, are relegated to the category of speculative with no basis in fact. What cannot be seen and touched is not given credibility by scientists trained to rely on objective consciousness. The mysterious and ephemeral nature of the spiritual plane of being remains largely unexplored by the scientific community. These actualities are denied out of existence by the uninitiated multitude.

  Even so, here is where truth resides. These essences, the etheric, astral, mental, and spiritual bodies of man, survive death and the dissolution of the physical body to rise up into the ethereal to wait. In due season, these essences (vested with memory and soul personality) are attracted to a developing fetus in an expectant mother’s womb. Awaiting rebirth, an old soul in a new body, his character traits and emotional tendencies are as they were at death. In this disembodied state the awaiting soul personality is accorded a glimpse into the trials and ordeals that are to shape and influence personality and character in the incarnation at hand: his earliest and most inspiring memories were of ‘sister.’

  As a little boy, he instinctively followed the way as shown by ‘sister.’ She uncannily distilled from his normal thoughts an elixir of powers and potencies. She drew from him his innate tendencies and inbred sensibilities. Her way of eliciting the best in him kept him bound to her. Always, in their play together and in the fancies of his imagination, he saw himself as her protector. He was her noble knight. She was his fair maiden, pure and lovely. His only purpose in life was to do as she asked of him. Her purpose to him, he supposed, was inspiration and guidance.

  He accepted her strict discipline as a well-trained creature accepts the restraints of his trainer. Obvious to him, she knew best. As his preceptor she would conduct sessions where she discoursed on manners, ethics, philosophy, art, and literature.

  So strong did she impress him that he sensed her presence even when he was alone. She was in his dreams and in his reveries. She calmed him, mollifying his rash and impulsive nature to meld his explosive personality with a hypersensitive heart and his self-absorbed mind.

  Introduction, Part II

  These conscious and subconscious gleanings of self as to the dual nature of man, the objective world that is known through our senses; this is the world we know and with which we are comfortably familiar. This is the environment for work, social interaction, birth, marriage, and death. This world is based on status where power and prestige rule through wealth.

  Another world exists where things may not be as they seem. This other world is subjective and is unfamiliar to most people. This world is not readily accessible. A higher type of functioning is required to interpret the phenomena of this world. To process the ways of the subjective world requires a high degree of psychic development. Most people in our modern civilization, especially in the western societies, have allowed the psychic facilities to atrophy. Modernity is overly dependent on objective consciousness and undeveloped in the psychic, the world of dreams and of intuition.

  Considering the importance of psyche and the lack of psychic awareness among us, compensation is needed. This means that the person who is confronting the psyche needs a mediator. The mediator most often and in most people takes form as a guide and teacher of the opposite sex who appears to us in dreams, visions, and in times of crisis when the persona is in need of fortification. In Jungian dream analysis, as pioneered by Carl Jung, this archetypical figure is known as the anima. Her masculine counterpart appearing in the dreams of girls and women is the animus.

  All dreams that revolve around a person of the opposite gender who functions mysteriously having multiple dimensions or personalities are representative of the anima/animus archetype. This ethereal personage (anima) relates in the subconscious in surprising ways. It is not an uncommon experience that she come to the dreamer as sexy and alluring and unabashedly flaunting her erotic nature.

  Sexual undertones in our dreams and reveries may be constructive and beneficial if the anima is nurturing. Conversely, she might appear as a she-devil, a femme fatal. What determines how she comes forth is the character of the projections from the subconscious of the dreamer. The projections populate the psychic environment and interact with projections emanating from the psyche of others as well as previous projections of the dreamer. As is the pattern in humans, projections of thought forms attach themselves to existing thought forms and attach to living people as well. Naturally, the projections, thought forms, and living persons act and react upon one another in a dynamic exchange causing the reflections of the original projections and subsequent ones to return to their origins inside the minds of the people involved.

  Further, the anima enters into our romantic involvements. We project our inner anima archetype out into our environment and this projection from the subconscious will, unfailingly, attach itself to any and all available females of our choosing. This dynamic interaction will explain the conflict in relationships when inner expectations go unmet. The person we thought we knew and understood is not the person of our projection. This person has her own ways that are different than the idealization we project.

  Consciousness is split into objective and subjective components. Another way to say this; our minds have a duel nature being divided into two parts; the objective and rational consciousness and the subconscious. Objective consciousness relies exclusively on the information transmitted from the outside world to the brain by the five objective senses; seeing, hearing, and tasting, smelling, and tactile stimulation. Objectivity is typified as masculine.

  The psyche is the unconscious/subconscious part of man. The psychic self is typified as feminine because of its functioning as the intuitive, emotional and feeling part of our mental framework.

  The duel nature, rational objectivity and the subconscious realm of psyche, is depicted symbolically in the marriage ceremony. In marriage male and female join as one. This union of two becoming one is better understood to symbolize the assimilation of the objective and masculine aspects of consciousness into the feminine and subjective psychic components of self and of consciousness. A bible story speaks to this. The parable is of Jesus and the wedding party at Cana. This depiction is the familiar account of water that is turned into wine. The bridegroom in the parable is given garments especially for him to wear. His celestial bride also wears special garments. She wears robes of spirit substance. The bedchamber matrimonial is sanctified and made holy. The ritual of consecration is preparatory for the eminent union of groom and bride.

  The groom and bride united as one represents man’s dual nature. The union is of the outer and profane with the inner and sacred, male with female. Thus will come a time of promise and glory when man will behold, in all her splendor and glory, the spiritual beloved! Duality will become as one in eternal perfection.

  We tarry a while longer until this dream of perfection is the will of humankind on all planes and on all worlds. We wait that humankind be tempered by trial of fire and emerges pure and strong. He must be ready and able to stand as an upright pentagram with purity and strength and to be true to purpose.

  It is a man’s privilege and a blessing from heaven to have the guidance and protection of preternatural entities and those of us in conscious rapport with the cosmic mind have distinct advantages over those without. It is a bitter truth that most of us have forfeited privilege. Essential to privilege are noble ideals and innate goodness. Those having these advantages must stand firm with the ones of us who are less prepared that we all may gain the blessings of our divine heritage. The forfeiture of guidance and protection is a calamity. The misfortunates of our number who do
not carry on with us inevitably suffer a series of unhappy events in their lives. Taken in total their life story eerily looks like a veritable ‘fall from grace.’ One questions the foolishness of men. One questions why men live so carelessly.

  It is no mystery nor is it a coincidence that the outworking of destinies in men will follow a pattern. The pattern has been decreed efficacious by Divine Wisdom, that the yearnings of self be addressed and an answer be formulated assuming the image of Self. The Self (Psyche) weds self. Self (Psyche) is in rapport with the out workings of the unconscious and projects into the environment the character of this psychic content. These projections take material form to populate earth according to self’s inner (psychic) nature.

  More in the way of explanation is forthcoming that we may understand the modes and methods, the intricacies and wherewithal of how psyche functions and the role of psyche in personal growth.

  Introduction, Part III

  His earliest and most pleasing memories were of his sister. Oh, she was not a sister in the familiar sense. Rather, she was a cousin by marriage. Convenience and happenstance, they were in each other’s company from the beginning as little children. Later, as adolescents, they shared a tutor. They were the same age and had similar tastes and abilities. Naturally, a deep affection developed between them.

  Childhood must fade into the past. Their growing up had been a happy time. An extreme reversal of situation came into their world. The pallor of death and despair changed their world forever!

  Born into a world of chaos and strife, the comfort and security of their childhood belied how the world really was! Undercurrents of social upheaval boiled over to become a torrent of torment that overwhelmed the people of the region. Everyone was affected. Even the rich and high class suffered. Nothing could ease the suffering. Chaos and strife, this was how the world rolled!

  Rival ethnicities are organized into nation states that compete for resources and cultural supremacy. Inured in their tribal identities, hostilities are inevitable. The leaders of a country will glorify the collective self. The plan is to pump up the populace and garner support for their policies.

  In times of crisis, propaganda and the control of information are useful tools readily made use of by the power elite to manipulate public opinion. To deflect opposition to wrongheaded designs, the will of God is invoked that unprovoked aggression against the enemy be sanctioned as just.

  The rule of law is not, nor has it ever been, the guiding principle of our leaders and institutions. Might makes right is the credo behind closed doors though publicly the leaders are sanctimoniously mouthing platitudes about security and defense.

  Ignoring the common good, denial of a common bond that should unite and sustain mankind, the ruling class has seized control and the very pylons of civilization are threatened by their greed and corruption.

  Heads of state betray their citizens by inventing false pretenses for war. When lawful economic competition is subverted, the less aggressive nations will be forced to resist or submit to tyranny. Diplomats act like petulant little boys and girls. They bicker over the most asinine matters and do not negotiate honestly and sincerely on issues of supreme importance.

  Since all the distrust comes from an unnatural lust for social, economic, and cultural supremacy, corruption and disillusion affect all the people and their institutions. In such a world, our world devoid of principle, everyone, from the renowned men of letters and the highest office holders to misshapen miscreants of malfeasance inhabiting life’s shadowy alleys, engage themselves in criminal behavior.

  The power elites pretend to safeguard the public good. Instead, they are unprincipled. The hidden intent of state rhetoric is the domination of the forum so they can influence public opinion. They use propaganda to give false impressions. They plant seeds of fear and suspicion to stir up the population against an enemy. Amplifying the drumbeat to increase the public fervor, misrepresentations and outright lies are pervasive in campaigns to meld public opinion against perceived threats. The underbelly of patriotic rhetoric is the deliberate, immoral use of false flag operations to implicate other countries in acts of aggression against the people using one’s own weapons and soldiers to do the dirty work. The population is continually subjected to the specter of threats to the homeland security to justify the erosion of civil liberties. Using state of the art electronic technology, surveillance has morphed into a shadow government monitoring everything we do from cradle to grave.

  Secrecy, suspicion, slander, slavery, and slaughter! This has always been the way of doing business in our world of chaos and strife. Our kings and rulers have taken as their solemn duty the stuffing of their private coffers and keeping the status quo, their dominant status, no matter the cost in human toil and suffering. And, the waging of total war is the trump card of choice to get the world unsteady and pliable.

  Tragically, those most damaged by war, the soldiers and their innocent victims, have been robbed of honor and dignity. They have nothing to rally them that might give them solace and purpose and the will to struggle and endure.

  Bah! To the rulers and kings whose reign is offensive and indecent. The ship of state is amiss and adrift. It flounders near disaster. Your time is coming! You, all of you, will drown in the rising torrents of the sea of discontent!

  Born into a world of chaos and strife that breeds a vulgar citizen, he, as to morality, is a marked contrast to prevailing loose standards. Yet, seeds of perfidy will gestate to take root and grow to taint even those of high standards. Chance or circumstance, an ill-fated chain of events may overwhelm a man of noble aspirations. In an emotional tide of grief and sorrow he stumbles upon a twisted path that leads to the junction of good and misfortune. In a moment of opaque vision, he wanders from reason. Error leads away from hope to a loss of grace.

  Born into a world of chaos and strife and with no calling in life, no raison d’ etre like the fortunate sons born into luxury and raised from childhood with a feeling of self-importance and entitlement: having no ready and made-to-order business or trade, he had limited opportunities. He was directed to the only respectable career for which he was suited. He became a professional soldier.

  His mental orientation agreed with the ideals of soldiering. He craved to live life to its fullest, to experience the highs and the lows, seeking adventure, as a knight on a quest. Life as a warrior suited him! It was a warrior he became! Born into a world of chaos and strife, it was a warrior he became.

  He went off to battle as to a crusade. He would be a holy warrior. He took himself very seriously. He felt like he was on a quest. He wanted to be a hero recognized by all! He was doing this to prove himself to the world and to Laetitia. He had not grown out of the play acting in the games of his childhood. He still lived in the world of fair damsels in distress and of knights to the rescue.

  He soon awoke from his daydream. He was made painfully aware his delusions. War is not noble and honorable! War is a career that chastens and hardens the soul. Being an idealist with a penchant for chivalry, he was assaulted by brutal and atrocious conduct going on all around him. Romantic and sentimental by nature and breeding, his nerves were sensitive and his heart vulnerable to hurt and disillusion when harsh realism set in to dispel his naïve and preconceived notions.

  War masquerades gaily plumed and wearing trappings of nationalistic jingoism. War dons a mask of glory. War is thinly disguised. War’s undressing reveals a naked and famished beast that devours everything in its way. Populations are decimated. Families are chewed up and spit out. War is a phantasm of hellish terror. Innocent victims survive death to be broken and humiliated by capricious and sadistic bullies. War leaves heartache. The ebb and flow of human events acerbated by war deposits ruin; the aftereffects of complete devastation will stay on a very long time after all traces of bloody froth vanish from the land.

  The warrior suffered a grievous loss. His family and his beloved Laetitia had been trapped in the besieged city. After a long siege, t
he city had been overrun to be occupied by enemy soldiers. As the home was being torn asunder, furnishings desecrated, those living in and around the occupied zone were at the mercy of calloused and vengeful soldiers who, likely as not, became objects who might be sexually abused, then, viciously put to death. He was doing the same thing in the cities of the enemy.

  At first he did not do the things he saw others do. He stayed away from raping and killing innocent victims. But, like unto so many of the boys engaged in the art of war, he became desensitized to suffering. So much tragedy! The shock and horror became commonplace. He would go about the business inflicting slaughter and mayhem as a Zombie, unfeelingly. And some of these boys were actual berserkers in their relish for blood. They pillaged the homes of the civilian population. They seized upon wives and virgin daughters having their way with them, requiring them as cooks and maids and sex toys. After a period of incessant exposure to scenes and episodes of horror, he, too, came to revel in the spoils of war!

  The warrior came to know the wicked ways of the wicked, wicked world. His knowledge was thorough and complete, as one learns from hands on experience, always front row and center, wreaking terror on innocent victims. Inwardly, he was repulsed by the criminality. He felt intense dislike for himself. He cringed inwardly thinking about his own considerable crimes against humanity. Even so, to appearances he cared not a whit. He laughed at the hapless plight of the raped and ravaged, helpless and homeless.

  Hostilities eased and a general truce was declared. Both sides in the conflict were exhausted and neither side felt confident that they were winning. He was given a furlough. He did not hesitate. He left immediately to return to his home, family, and girlfriend.

  He knew from second hand reports the homeland had been sorely tested by siege and occupation. But, siege had been partly broken and the occupation forced to withdraw from the center of the city to its perimeters and a general armistice was soon. A negotiated treaty would restore the borders to their original position with only minor adjustments. It seemed as if the war had been fought for nothing!

  He had not had news from anyone about how everyone had gotten along. Even so, he could scarcely imagine something going wrong. Just remember! These were his people and his people had been taught to fight and taught to win.

  He made it through the lines and through the outlying districts of his city. He saw destruction and chaos, suffering and dead people. Aghast, he stood looking at ruination at every turn of the highway leading home. In every town and village, burned houses and barns, abandoned storefronts, unplowed fields, and pastures with no animals in them gave him a sense of dread. Stunned by what he saw, the ultimate shock was upon his arrival at his home. He had come home to nothing! This was the day his hope and happiness died!

  Looking for family, he found them at last. Searching frantically for Laetitia, he finally found her and all the others entombed in the family crypt. He had once been a mighty warrior. This day he was one of the vanquished. He once was a mighty warrior! Yea, on this day he was one of the vanquished!

  He stood motionless before the sealed crypt. He stood motionless with his eyes downcast. He stood perfectly still and confronted himself in his aloneness. He stared into the barren recesses of his black heart. Standing motionless, he knew with finality that he was a perversity. His body unwavering, his vacant eyes told more than a bard could tell in a thousand words, yea, a thousand million words in any language, modern or dead; long forgotten vowel sounds and consonants to tell tales of love and loss and death; lost love so bitter and death so bittersweet! His lament: “Doomsday! Come over me! Come in silence! Doom come over me as a shroud to hide me away! Loss! Loss! My family! My one true love! All is loss and nothingness!”

  ‘The Forlorn Warrior, a misspent incarnation”

  The once brave and proud, in love or in war; the one who vowed his every part to honor and dignity: the once mighty warrior came dejectedly to this highland seeking no new horizons. His eyes were downcast and vision tunneled to the dank and gloomy landscape below. He went down into the valley. His heart and body ached. He was remorseful. He longed for the past. He remembered how he once felt spiritual. Once, he had been happy. He remembered his life of glory. He had been a great warrior. He remembered his triumphs of passion. He was a great lover. He had a meaningful life and a sense of purpose that promised eternal grace, as the grace that was his gift from God before his fall and his ‘innocence lost!’

  He was no more the “Holy Warrior,” the superior defender of truth, of justice. His vow to purity had been compromised. The consecration of self to a higher purpose had been abandoned. He had violated his pledge to marriage in his lustful and cruel behavior. Justice had been delivered to him in kind.

  For all he knew they had put her in a brothel and advertised her as the new whore of Babylon who had been taken from a Temple dedicated to chaste Diana but whose vows were now to sensate lust! He was thoroughly disgusted with life but he was no innocent.

  He had become jaded and corrupted by his wartime experiences and taken to the commission of foul and unseemly deeds of blood lust insatiable and carnal lust insatiable being cruel and unfeeling to a vanquished foe and calloused and manipulative in affairs of the heart.

  Once, lovely and loving images, dreams, and memories sustained him when times were tough. His ignominious behavior had sullied these images. With no high ideals to protect he was stripped of the aura of invulnerability. He was not the able, the swift, and the true. His misdeeds were attended by a condition of dissolution and disintegration. In this abject condition his body and soul was easy target to those like unto himself. Treacherous soldiers of fortune looking for amusement and adventure could seek him out and maim him then kill him. Yet, even more dangerous to him than this was the situation awaiting him in the shadows. Phantoms lurked in the shadows!

  To be disemboweled and tortured to death would surely be agony. But, more horrible than dismemberment and death was the actual fate that waited on him. Phantoms, unclean spirits, and larvae: these non-creatures were gathering in other dimensions, circling and waiting to deal to him his insidious fate, a fate more tragic in its consequences than violent death! This was fair compensation, fair wages for his own misdeeds!

  He had renounced the higher path of devotion to truth. Fully aware of what he was doing, he had forsaken his hallowed vows to the highest ideals. He had given up on himself. He had punked out! No one, man nor angel, could nor would they help him now! He had brought this tragedy upon himself.

  He had withdrawn from the guidance and care that is the hallmark of the good intentioned and pure at heart who are vigilantly shepherded and instructed by celestial beings, that is to say, angels. Angels are alert when one under their care faces peril.

  An angel will present himself if need be. The angel has responsibility to steer an errant child of heaven and protect the innocent and vulnerable person if he is otherwise worthy and is well qualified to be initiated into the mysteries of God’s Kingdom, but only in conformity with true will. Never is the sanctity of the individual’s will violated in these interactions. If one chooses a path of negation of his higher ideals so may it ever be!

  This protection is not afforded to everyone. There are grades of instruction and ordeals of character to be met before a student is passed to a higher grade with the strictest of admonitions that it be of the candidate’s own true will. What is here described is an ongoing process extending for lifetimes in succession. As knowledge is given and proficiency gained, doors to sacred inner sanctums open and vices and superfluities fall away and a man or woman becomes more spiritual as intended and as it was before the fall from grace when mankind forgot his true spiritual estate and became spellbound by the allure of sensuality.

  Any slip up that will take someone who is a true initiate from his goals and highest aspirations is made right so equilibrium be regained.

  The administrators and technicians who shepherd us on our march to proverbial Zion are invisible t
o eyesight. Nonetheless, they are real. Their role and responsibility is to govern and guide us and to care for us. It is the angels who shield and defend us from any and all perverse entities. We are not even aware of these perverse and unclean spirits that co-inhabit the world we live in, trying to infect the minds of naïve and vulnerable humans as they enervate the victim and impose unsanctioned coercion upon their prey in the effort to break down the will.

  Unclean spirits are real. Do not deceive yourselves nor let others mislead you into denial of their existence. If you do take lightly the threat and fall victim, be willing to accept the consequences of your actions and to pay recompense as proper. These words are not an appeal to superstition and fear. These words are to instruct.

  There are those among us who, experiencing the human condition, through past lives misspent, set up a karmic condition that must be addressed in subsequent incarnations. These misfortunates have well developed predilections for negative and self-destructive thought patterns that establish unhealthy conditions of mind and body as well as disharmony in the environment in which they dwell. Having pre-conditioned themselves to loving evil and the sordid, dominated by disillusioned, unhappy states of mind, they become agents for evil. It does not matter that they be unaware of their complicity in Hell. The results will be the same as if they knew what would happen to them. Those of an unspiritual cast of mind fall easy prey to those lurking in the shadow, the seducers and manipulators of mankind. Perverse, disincarnate entities are in league with perversely inclined humans. Together, they seek to influence and to hold dominion over the weak and less cunning among us. These perfidious beings use their perverse powers to subvert the wills of the passive and those who already have the kernels of evil within the fertile seed beds of their hearts.

  Preying on the ones who are ready hosts, they come as invited guests. In the dark of the night they sneak into the sleeping chamber to rape the host and desecrate the boudoir. The powers of suggestion, evil magnetism, mesmerism, and hypnotic induction: these tools of the Black Arts are used in the seduction and manipulation of the victims. Possession, obsession, ignominy, and death are the certain fates of those who err to take this path. Certain and sure, the Devil will strangle even his own sorcerers!

  A bedraggled, forlorn, and forsaken warrior came down from the highlands into the foreboding valley. His weapon was a pitted and tarnished sword with a broken tip. A clean and sharpened point would have given protection from the larval spectral forces he was to meet. Instead of alertly proceeding with the sword pointed to meet danger, he was dragging the sword behind him, etching a wavering line in the sand and loose gravel. He was exposed and essentially unarmed. He was not ready to confront danger. He was not aware as he was being drawn, body, psyche, and soul, toward doom.

  The Fool and the Maiden

  Descending, he heard strange and hypnotic melodies, cadences affecting a peculiar music. He heard melodies intertwining, convergent, divergent; an enchanting melody parlayed into a wild and frenzied song celebrating folly and madness, then, soft and soothing again. The music enchanted and enticed him, beckoning him on. Directly, he came upon a most peculiar scene.

  A fool appeared before him, a fool in repose. Then, the fool stood up. He was of imposing stature. The fool commanded a clearing within a wild, reckless, and tangled glen. The fool played upon a violin. As the fool played, images, (surely the images were hallucinations coming out of his overwrought imagination); as the fool played the violin, these images, a phantasmagoria of shape and color whirled and danced, seemingly at the fool’s command.

  Girls, nubile and pubescent, mature women voluptuously beautiful, breasts swollen with milk, and toothless hags, wrinkled and with shrunken paps: all danced seductively. Their partners in this ritualistic dance of lust were wizened old men whose appearance and manners resembled more the satyrs and beasts than the refinement generally considered the estate of man. All danced and twirled, seemingly at the fool’s command.

  Carnal desire, mixed and mingling with bitterness and disappointment; disillusion, dishonor, self-deception, and disgrace: these were the warrior’s innermost feelings.

  The fool’s serenade came to an abrupt halt. He was smiling cunningly and to himself, as if he had anticipated the warrior. The notes of the music faded to nothingness. The images of dancing, reveling, and ribaldry vanished to nothingness. The fool and the warrior were now alone within the tangled glade.

  This treacherous fool, one of the devil’s own sorcerers, was motionless as he stood in front of the warrior. He appeared to be entranced. Of a sudden he began to move approaching the warrior, making wild gestures, uttering demonic noises, straight toward him, unnervingly close; palms outward, arms extended, gesticulations unceasing, weaving a magnetic web, a snare of negative, miasmic polarity.

  Smiling in cunning and derision, the sorcerer’s outer form changed. In outward appearance the sorcerer changed from a

  fool playing violin into a sleek and gallant nobleman, still advancing, gesticulating, and weaving a magnetic web.

  The warrior felt his strength and self-assertiveness ebbing. His head was swimming. Vertigo had nearly overcome him. Mesmerized, he had lost control. His mind was frozen in a state of abstraction. Another’s mind, another’s will was infringing upon his mind to constrain his will, taking control, possessing his body to impede his will. He had no ability to resist what was happening to him. Detached from his body he could merely observe. Passively witnessing the unfolding events, he could not exert his will.

  Finally and irremediably, he stood possessed. He had been evicted from his most sacred dwelling, his physical body. He could no longer think rationally. Any desire to do good, all sense of decency, propriety, and urges to follow the voice of conscience and the promptings of the higher self no longer compelled him. Inner guidance had been repressed. His will and the will of the malevolent one had merged.

  The face and form of the malevolent one changed again. This time it took the form of a most fetchingly seductive maiden. She seemed chaste and pure. The way she acted was anything but chaste as she came ever so close to him. Her lips were almost touching his lips. Her lips and the breath issuing from them served as an intoxicant. He was close to swooning when she jabbed him with rigid thumb and fingers in the hollow softness below ribs and breastbone. He felt breath forcibly leaving his lungs. He was not able to inhale. He was choking and out of breath.

  Breathing on him, she murmured, “Have you a desire to learn our Art?”

  He murmured assent.

  “Do you lust for power over all creatures here on earth?”

  Head nods assent.

  “Do you renounce celestial and heavenly guidance?”

  He assented.

  “Will you go in league with these black angels here assembled?”

  “Yes.”

  “Swear alliance, fealty, and abiding kinship with the black princes, monstrous creations, and the larvae and unclean spirits that prevaricated from the divine First Estate to be consigned to the material world where they stand fast in prevarication!”

  “I swear.”

  “Will you take this blood oath in Hell?”

  “I will.”

  And it was done.

  Though he had entered into an infernal covenant that could never be broken, yet sounded a small voice, the voice of self. From deep within, the voice sounded with remorse and condemnation. He had renounced the good and the beautiful and the true. He had renounced his cherished ideals. His honor was lost forever! Now his life and dreams were worthless.

  Time passed in a glazed and meaningless frenzy of misdeeds. He had become a slave to passion. He had nothing to anchor and subdue him being the tool of his mentors, those who had initiated him into the Black League, the Brotherhood of the Shadow. He had to do as told.

  Now the prime force, the reason for his being, was that he participates in rites and rituals serving to give expression to unwholesome desires and to bring others into the Black League, the
Brotherhood of the Shadow. He would go out into the world to get ambitious and self-serving candidates. His method was to infiltrate social circles of vainglorious and ethnocentric persuasions, unprincipled and class-conscious elitists. Then, it was not difficult to cultivate his subjects. He would appeal to their vanity. He would address the issue of cultural dominance and natural selection being justification for continuous control of the underclass through whatever means practical and expedient that the rich and powerful remain in their stations. He would expostulate as to the breeding of the upper class implying that wealth and culture were proof of genetic superiority which gave the ruling class its prerogative to dominate, subjugate, and control the masses. Corrupt economic models supported by dishonest political machinations must be maintained no matter the cost in moral values. He would demonstrate the methods to the more talented and most corrupt among the candidates that came his way. He showed them how to use the common man’s baser instincts of fear and innate selfishness to control public opinion to subjugate the will of the people and coerce the people to give up the right to self-determination by ceding power to the ruling elite. The ultimate goal was to create a world with a permanent class system that would eventually split into totally distinct races.

  These inner character traits that herald the best in man are innate in every one of us from birth unto death. But, these innate tendencies for good can be pushed to the side by appeals to greed and the preaching of want and fear to bring out man’s inordinate selfishness. “Make them think that selfishness is the higher law! Make them forget they are here to serve anyone but themselves!”

  More insidious even than this, class warfare is being waged. The weapons used in class warfare are status and glamour and terrific armed force to silence the masses and their voices of freedom proclaiming the eternal quest of mankind’s divine right to self -determination.

  Maidens, virgins must be seduced that they are deflowered, despoiled, demeaned, and degraded. Life and love and everything that is precious and holy? Life is to be reviled, cheapened and debased. Love is to be made a mockery.

  As a willful participant in infernal ceremonies, the forlorn warrior insured his most certain and eternal damnation. After a probationary process, he rose in rank and assumed the station of chief in initiatory ritual. He would serve his mentors in many ways; by recruitment of suitable candidates, the training and re-education that would break their will power to resist that which violates conscience. Then, he would seduce them by trickery or whatever means necessary, to swear an oath to darkness and prideful egoism.

  In the final act of the Initiation, the candidate took upon himself the terrifyingly final, horribly binding and irrevocable obligatory rites of an oath that could not be broken. The obligation to the Brotherhood of the Shadow would then be signed and sealed with the candidate’s own blood and semen to be delivered by him in person to the Hall of Records of the Possessed and the Criminally Insane, thereby to be divested of certain inalienable human rights and to be made subject to the fears and aberrations of the entire human race.

  And the cone of power of the dark side of Mother Earth never abates in her invultuating and spellbinding as the self-appointed custodians of humanity, the kings and priests, thrive in the corrupted distortion of heavenly archetypes and the virtues thereof. Praised and acknowledged as the law unto themselves, state and religion with time-honored tradition; these anachronisms hold sway and dominate our lives. They are distortions. They are no more than crude replications of the original, divine archetypes.

  All falsity must be exposed for what it is! Falsity must be cast by the wayside! Falsity is all-powerful and it is deeply etched in the sub-consciousness of man.

  And the medicaments and technology offered as health and healing is but based on lucre and deceit. These iniquitous butchers and pill pushers rely, yea, they insist upon ignorant and misinformed patients as to the natural healing and the source of all disease. This insures there will always be a steady stream of ill patients to secure excessive profiteering in their racketeering! Doctors, lawyers, priests; those with a false sense of pride and an overblown sense of self-importance glorify false values in a self-serving campaign to accrue prestige; (they think they are smarter than the rest of us). They do everything they can to dispel momentum for progressive change continuously fomenting from deep within the collective unconscious of mankind. These odiferous sons of Sodom stand in the way of Progress. And this is the climate for the Black Arts to flourish.

  Doctors, lawyers, priests! You stand accused of Black Magic!

  Thus, it came to him to prepare a ceremony, a High Mass to celebrate blackness, perfidy, and ignorance. The ritual was to be centered on the deflowering of a young girl just reaching pubescence and a virgin.

  The ritual to be enacted was to be more dramatic even than the usual paeans to Dionysius or Pan or Shaitan. This rite was a deliberate and conceptual work of evocation of the fallen angels gathered around their chief, Samiaxas, on a high mountain, ‘the Mountain of the Oath.’ In this rite, the last deposes the first; Azazel becomes the head of the ten primary demons. The ceremony is horrid. It is repugnant to all but those being served, those being the ten fallen angels.

  “These spirits materialize; they take on corporeal forms in order to participate in human beauty . . .”

  Those to be summoned in the Evocation have a life of their own but draw strength from unsanctified sexual transgressions and from scenes of greed, hate, and violence, most especially, blood sacrifice of innocents. The vitality of innocent blood bequeaths a corrupt ‘light’ to whoever might indulge, to give strange abilities to manipulate the astral light and to communicate clairvoyantly, humans and demons sharing in an infernal communion, a celebration of triumphant iniquity.

  The little girl was to be sexualized with the blood of her deflowering as the offering of blood!

  Then, she was to be drugged, unconscious and unaware as the ceremony moved to its conclusion. In the final moments she was to be dismembered and disemboweled while still alive! Her various organs, still quivering, would be the substance composing the powders, elixirs, potions, philtres, and magical unguents for use as agents of seduction and fascination and as poisons to spread sickness, insanity, and death. Human beauty is perverted, invultuated, and misdirected to be unleashed upon an already mired and abject world.

  At this propitious moment, the forces of darkness gathering power and infernal might, at the brink of the breach which was the mouth of an unspeakable chasm: at the very last of possible moments, the conscience of the warrior, his heart and soul, mind and body; his entire being exerted the will to resist, to rebel against the Legions of Darkness.

  At the brink of the chasm, entryway into the involutionary vortex of ‘lost’ and ‘forever,’ from whence there would be no turning back; at the very last moment, the ceremony about to be consummated, he spirited the girl away to a safe haven. Yet, his own escape from imminent peril was not to be!

  “When one creates phantoms, one must nourish the nightmare children with his very own blood and they are never satisfied!”

  There is no escape from the Law of Compensation. Everyone must answer, in due time, for his actions. “Take unto oneself for a while, then, repay in kind.” There is no escape from the Law of Compensation . . .

  After the rebellion and his breaking of the oath he had sworn, that he would be loyal to the league of fallen angels and to evil, his life was forfeit.

  The devil’s sorcerer, the one who had initiated him, came after him. It took only a day and some hours to be found. He had only moments to reflect upon his situation before being beset by elementals, strangling and suffocating him unto death.

  He died in anguish and pain. It was mental shock and physical pain to be witness to his limbs being torn from his body by dog-faced demons while still alive and gasping for life sustaining breath.

  Death, Recrimination, Redemption, Rebirth

  At his last breath, deep within his consciousness, at his
very last moment of life, he could hear a still, small voice. The voice of his conscience spoke to him after a long silence lasting decades. This voice was inaudible, yet, of the highest resonance. Impinging on his mind, the voice spoke thusly: “O, vile, wretched, and wicked one! A precious lifetime has been wasted! You have degraded yourself! You have wallowed in sin and error!

  “You had opportunity for soul growth! Opportunity was scornfully dismissed. You played with destiny treating life as a frivolous game. You relished sensuality over honor and showed us your weakness and depravity. Not only have carnal appetites controlled your every thought and deed, yours has been an even greater failing as to the squandering of higher potentialities. The Celestial Hierarchy made considerable concessions to your evolvement. You have shown us that you do not care to take responsibility.

  “When things went against you after your dance with depravity, you gave in to sadness, sorrow, dejection, and despair. You had forgotten your special place and the role you were to play. These times could be used to better purpose. The guardians and teachers of your soul feel deep seated disappointment and some have suggested your transgression and betrayal are reasons to expel you from our order. Sinful debauchery and sadistic cruelty are grievous errors. The magnitude of your sins has the tincture of iniquity. You broke the oath you had sworn to uphold. This obligation was sworn before the sacred altar. Transgression bears a penalty of death.

  “To shift your loyalty from the noble and all that is good and be subservient to chiefs of the Brotherhood of the Shadow, enemies who oppose and undermine our cause, is iniquitous. There will be no mercy for you. Iniquity is not lightly pardoned!

  “Your fall from grace is typical of the degeneration of mankind. The Spirit of Man has been suborned to the animal soul. The sublimity of Man’s original estate has been buried deep in the psyche by the passage of time. Redemptive and regenerative behaviors are disparaged as having no value in a culture that is immured in materialism. This leads to the glorification of carnality and self indulgence.

  “The Spirit of Man was drawn inexorably to the allure of the animal nature. The decent from grace of the Spirit of Man was effected through seduction and witchcraft. Earth-bound Lords of the animal soul joined prevaricated larval specters in creating a devolutionary current, a spell of fascination. Unaware of the potential intrangencies in the desire for a body in which to enjoy one’s sensual nature, mankind gave it all up for the pleasures of the body. As an unforeseen condition of how things were to be, the state of divine sonship was erased from memory. This is one the conditions of embodiment. The loss of the divine first estate in the world of the spirit resulted in a disheartening sense of estrangement. A consequence of conjoining the spiritual with the animal nature, fallen Mankind can never feel he is a part of the unified whole. The vast numbers of men and women here on earth are unhappy and dissatisfied. The condition of the fall is degrading. It is truly disgraceful!

  “Only a few of the more advanced men and women retained knowledge of the First Estate before the fall from spirit to materiality. Knowledge of his true potential and the assurance of his divine son-ship give hope and a sense of purpose to the few as they remember who they are. Reintegration of men into the spirit will bring hope and courage to fight the good fight for heavenly truths and righteousnesses. Men of action endowed with reason and spiritual sight, though few, are now capable of progress in that direction.

  “Through the trepidation of the ages, religious traditions among ‘sons of heaven’ have been kept alive and handed down from father to son serving to enshrine in memory Man’s former glory, the fall from grace and subsequent alienation from God, the heralded coming of the ‘new’ man to show the way of reintegration as we remember our place as children of the Father and enter the promised golden age.

  “Man is a dual-natured creature. He is both man and woman. He is androgynous. Conflict between the sexes is conflict within self. A truly integrated man/woman is the Savior and Sophia (wisdom), the queen of heaven in one body.

  “Angels are sent to men to watch over them, to lead them away from evil, and to inspire them with good affections. There are spirits and angels with all men. Men are led to the Lord by spirits and angels. You are being told these things not by chance but by purpose and design. You are, by birthright, a ‘son of heaven.’ You have a mission that you must fulfill. No other would be absolved of his iniquities as you have been. The tests in the immediate past incarnation were designed that you would be subjected to the pattern of events that brought the original fall from grace. You experienced the same disillusion, disappointment, and seduction by infernal and earth bound spirits that led to the enslavement of Spiritual Mankind to his animal nature. Once fallen, men suffered deeper enslavement to the forces of the dark world. You went down just as all the others. You made the same mistakes. Maybe you learned something this time. Maybe, you do better next time! We will see how it goes. Good luck. The Lord and his angels go with you. You are our child. Naughty or nice, you are our child!”

  Thus, every cloud has its silver lining. What had started as the most tragic of all possible outcomes to an incarnation on planet earth, ended up having undercurrents of redemption and soul growth under the guidance of Divine Hierarchy. The warrior found it to be odd that destiny would work out this way.

  As the warrior continued his sojourn in the astral plane and the world of abstract thought, his thoughts were of anything but soul growth. He was more than a little dazed and confused by the whirlwind vortex that had swept him into the heavenly empyrean and thrown him downward into the abyss. Even so, the words reverberated to the very core of his being and made an impression on him that would be with him forever. He recognized that he had been privileged to receive a special, a sacred doctrine from the secret tradition that predates civilized mankind. He had been instructed in the mysteries of the Divine Hierarchy and he now had certain knowledge of the saga, a celestial drama, of his race.

  As he was waiting for the time and place of his eminent reincarnation, he was thinking things over. His thoughts were of Laetitia, she of joy and delight. He kind of felt he might see her again! Funny and strange this life and death and rebirth thing!

  *****

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Ronny Dale Knape Roberson was born in Nitro, West Virginia in 1948. Daddy was a welder traveling across country laying pipelines: Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Macomb, Mississippi, Bessemer, Alabama, Maine, Canada, Roswell, New Mexico, Refugio, Texas, and Maracaibo, Venezuela. He was welder’s foreman for Oklahoma Pipeline Construction working 7x12’s and earning good money which gave his children opportunities for social advancement and university degrees. My mother was something else! She gave me my combative ways. As a young girl she would ride in a wagon from Comanche County, Texas to west Texas to pick cotton. Her bloodline was Irish and 3/8 Cherokee. Lt. Nathan Gann was a direct forbearer. He fought at the Battle of King’s Mountain, North Carolina in the War for American Independence. I attended the University of Texas, class of 1973. The Viet Nam War was during these years. I gravitated toward weed, LSD, and revolutionary politics. I earned a B.A. in English. Commencement ceremonies were May 26, 1973. For work after college, I did the most natural thing. I made a carpenter. I have worked in the building trades most of my adult life. I had two marriages and three daughters, Dr. Jessica Campbell (Knape), Lillian Knape, Christina (Wendy) Knape. They say they are proud of me. I guess so. I found a scrap of paper announcing a Rosicrucian seminar. The year was 1981. Occult studies have been the determining influence on me ever since. I would think even the disinterested reader of my writing will see these currents of occultism and initiation in just about every word I put on paper. My mother and daddy said Austin ruined me. I say it was a good ‘ruinin’ in that I came out of it with occultism and Occupy, the two things most important to me. So, in brief, that’s it. No brag. Just fact.