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THE FOLLOWING ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE NOVEL:
INTRODUCTION
In the mid 1970s I began to take notes about what was going on in my life, especially my experiments with the occult. I won’t call my scribblings a proper diary because I official began one of those separately. However my occult notes accumulated and merged and eventually became something else and I don’t know exactly how it happened. I just kept adding to them while my memory was still fresh until by 1981 I had a 97 page hand written memoir of an amazing series of life adventures which I titled plainly, “A Short Magical History”. It chronicles my coming of age in the unreal counter culture of medieval reenactment, fantasy role playing before computers, and the rise of the Wicca movement prior to the birth of “New Age” spirituality. At the time of the memoir, in 1981, I was still so close to it all that I couldn’t see just how profound the experiences were that I had had: how unusual. And so I put the document in a drawer and didn’t pull it out for ten years.
In 1991 I read through the memoir again and was amazed that I had actually seen and felt the things that I had written about. I wanted to take the next step and expand on the details so that they read more like an autobiography than the 97 pages of notes that I had. I was lucky enough to get accepted at a writers retreat in Dorset Vermont for this purpose and I spent two weeks there putting everything together from the original documents. Luckily in 1991 I was still living in Chicago where most of my occult experiences had occurred, and I was still friends with all of the same people so the memories were fresh enough to contribute to the text. However, after the writer’s retreat it took me another three years to type everything up, fill in the gaps and even check with a few of my friends about the facts. And one of the things that I added during that time was a sense of the series of life events that shaped who I was before my complete absorption into the occult world. It added some pages and made it look more like an autobiography. Then I put it in the drawer again: And there it staid for another 14 years.
It is now January 2008 and I have pulled the manuscript out again. These days I live in southern California: I have a wife and a daughter and a whole new life. I am still a writer but my focus now is on film. Even my journal, which I have been writing since 1977 or so (I am nearly on volume 200) has taken a back seat to my movie writing. And I haven’t played a role playing game or participated in a medieval reenactment event for years. In fact, my world today is so very different from the amazing world of my Chicago youth that reading “A Short Magical History” now is like reading about someone else’s life. It’s a fantastic life, and it is mine, but I am no longer living it the way I was then, not even in my heart. And many of the people that drive the story in “A Short Magical History” are gone from my present world: Chris Henry, Maria the Mad, Tsuka, and even my blood brother Charles and my good friend Harrison are not part of my life any more. So I must look through many layers of time to see their faces again and hear their voices and feel their stimulating purpose. I love them all and as I read these pages I fall in love with them again and again. As for me: how glad I am to have lived that life and written it all down before I grew up and became somebody else. How delicious we all were then, how brilliant and fresh. Ah, youth, ah growth, ah the freedom to be, to experience, to experiment. I did so many other things and met some many amazing people in my early life that I long to add them into this. But I will keep it focused as it should be on the acts of my supernatural explorations and my coming of age.
The story of my occult past is all true. It is a truth whose clarity has been muddled in time and interpretation, written down sometimes within hours of the events themselves and then put aside and collected and compiled and read and rewritten and again rewritten until by 1981 I had a 97 page hand scribbled diary-like memoir. At the time I wrote the memoir, I completely believed it and did not exaggerate or lie to make it more exciting (if anything I underplayed some of the events so they did not seem ridiculous); since that memoir I have not added a single fact or fictionalized any of the events. However I have expanded on some of the autobiographical details, especially when dealing with my life before I joined the SCA. And what I have written and revised is as close to either what I personally remember or what is laid out in the facts of the original memoir from 1981. Part of me wants to change things around and combine characters for the sake of making this more cinematic (and maybe I will one day, under a different title). But for now I will keep this as it always has been: a memoir. And I will shape it only as much as to make it more readable. Who I am now is so different from whom I was then that to alter the tone or change anything would be defilement. And for those of you who are mentioned in this work by name, I love you all and I put nothing in this work about you that was not motivated by the love and belief in the experiences that we all had together. And even if your recollections of the same events are more or less than mine, please read this with an open heart.
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The Séance
One night Big Eric and my mother decided to have a séance. I was excited and wanted to join. I had heard people talk about séances before, how they were amazing and mystical experiences, but I had never actually participated in one. There was a board game out called "Ouija", a popular imitation of a Séance table meant to “bring back the dead" for ages 8 and up: but I hadn’t ever played it. Talking to the dead was more important to me than to most kids. When I was four the oldest members of my family began to drop, my mother’s-mother’s second husband, aunt Rosy, Helma and others. And when my mother’s divorce became final she started talking a lot about the man that she was engaged to before my dad, a beautiful young Bohemian fellow who was in the army. They wrote letters and longed for each other, longed for a future together. Then his head was blown off on Iwa Jima. It broke her heart.
The first truly close person to me to die was my father’s father (my grandpa). He was a war hero from WWI, a Swedish engineer who came to The States at nineteen and never returned home. As I walked up to his open casket with my dad, my father leaned over me and said…
“Touch his hand. Go ahead, touch it”. So I reached out and touched my grandpa’s wrinkled hand. It was ice cold. “One day you will touch my hand like that” my father whispered. I felt a chill as it sunk in: death will come, to all of us.
The fact that everyone I knew would die hit home when I was seven. My dear friend Michael Zumaia, a sweet kid with olive skin and a big smile was hit by a car on the outer drive, crossing with his father. Both were killed. This time I walked to the caskets alone, Michael on one side, his father on the other. I stood there for a long time over the corpse of my friend. I could see where the morticians had filled in his crushed skull; I could smell the embalming fluid and the paint. Behind me Michaels mother stood, devastated, her life over at 25. She grabbed me and held me so tight that I could barely move. She tried to relive her boy through me in that last moment. How real it all was; how random. What if I had been the one who died? What if my mother had been squeezing Michael, trying to feel one last bit of my lost life? After the funeral I was never the same again.
We all will dwell in two worlds: the world of our life and the world wrapped around our life which we call death. By the time I was nine, at that first séance, the death world already had a lot of people in it that I loved and that loved me. How could it be bad there? How could it be lonely? And what was keeping those dead loved ones from coming back and talking to me? I wanted to talk to them, to talk to Michael. I was frightened by the thought, sure, but also exhilarated. The closest I had ever come to feeling the presence of a ghost was by listening to stories about Scotland from my father’s second wife, Moira. She was an old world Scottish harpy who relished the fear that her tales could conjure on my face: eerie tales of Scotland's spooky past. I was very easily scared, more because I believed in ghosts and spirits than because I was susceptible to unwanted fear. In fact I was an avid fan of the most horrifying monster movies. So when the chance arose to conjure up the dead, I was thrilled to be a part of it.
As the snow was falling outside, Big Eric pulled down a large mirror from the wall. The mirror was placed face up on the floor where my mother, Josephine, printed out the alphabet with a grease pencil along its inner edge. We surrounded the mirror with candles and lit incense for ambiance. As a final touch Josephine chose a small, round glass as a container for the spirit of the ghost. My cousin Martin joined us for the séance along with Linnea, her boyfriend Ronny and Garret Graham, an actor friend. My mother was to be the medium. As the “witching-hour” drew near. Josephine put on a good show as we all warmed up to the idea of summoning spirits into the glass. So we began.
"Come into the cup, speak to us" she called out to the world of ghosts. The cup jiggle once or twice and she supposedly captured a spirit, but I was not impressed. None of the other participants seemed seriously committed to the project either and everyone was drinking and laughing. I was pissed: I wanted the experience to be a real one. I wanted to speak with my grandfather who had died; with Michael. I wanted to be the medium.
“Let me try” I said. “I want to do it; I want to be the medium now”.
Everyone stared at me. I was a kid. My request was not received very enthusiastically. The next youngest person in the room was Martin, 12 years my senior making him 21. But being nine does have its advantages. I whined and moaned and insisted on getting my way and I eventually got it. It was my turn, at last, to call into the shady world of spirits and invite them to join us for a brief encounter.
I held the glass up in the air, balancing it on the tips of my fingers. In a quivering voice I called for a spirit to enter the sacred chalice. The moment I felt a jiggle I flipped the glass down onto the mirror trapping the ghost: Then began our respectful interrogation. The adults joined in by placing their fingertips lightly onto the base of the upside down goblet. I began. First I asked the spirit a simple question.
"Who are you here to speak to?" We waited: Nothing; then a shudder, then another, and after a moment the glass began to squeak its way across the mirror to rest in front of Big Eric. I asked the spirit who it was. The glass then spelled out the name of Eric's dead aunt. Everyone seemed a bit surprised because nobody knew the aunt’s name but him, and the way the cup moves, no single person can direct it without them being caught. It must be moved collectively. Eric asked the spirit how his grandmother was. The cup didn't budge. Then I asked how his grandmother was. The cup began to move again, this time rolling over to the rim and stopping on some letters. The word it spelled was "S H E B O K". Eric questioned what his aunt meant. Then we deciphered it. "She be okay". Everyone shifted uncomfortably. It was turning out to be fun and weird, scary and somehow comforting.
I wanted to try it again. So I lifted the glass and called again for a spirit to enter it. This time there was no laughing or drinking and everyone was a little uneasy. The glass jiggled and I smacked it down. Reluctantly everyone placed their finger tips lightly on the container.
“Who do you want to speak with” I called out. Almost freakishly the glass shot off quickly and began to slide towards my mother. I could see people’s finger tips trying to keep up with it. This was more serious than the last one. It stopped by Jo, bumping into the rim.
“Who are you?” Jo asked. The cup began to move again. One letter after another, it spelled out the name of her old fiancé, the man who died in Iwa Jima. I am sure that Linnea and I were the only ones who knew his name and we certainly weren’t moving the glass: and judging by the way the color drained from her face, Jo wasn’t moving it either.
“What do you want?” She whispered, trembling. The glass didn’t move for a moment. Then slowly it spelled out the letters “Y”, “O”, & “U”: you. Jo reeled back.
“No” she chirped as she knocked the mirror. The glass clattered onto its side. What ever spirit had been in it was gone. And that was the end of the séance. The candles were blown out and the lights were flicked on. Nobody talked about it or went over it and everyone left my mom to her moment of peace. She was not happy. But I was.
As disturbed as the grown ups were by the séance, I was more stimulated than I could have ever imagined. For me the world of spirits had suddenly been confirmed: and my conclusion was that we lived in a multi-dimensional universe of entities that were reachable: a liquid pool of powers eternal from which we could draw a sip. I felt, from that night on, that I had the ability to transcend the mundane world of the physical for the more infinite universe of the mystical, and it thrilled me.
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Maria & the Dark Council
In 1976 The Society For Creative Anachronism was the magnet for a massive counter-culture movement composed of a collection of separate special interest groups. The two largest membership spheres which fed into SCA were the Fantasy Fans and the Religious Schismatics. The fantasy fans included Star Trekies, D&D players, Sword and Sorcery buffs and Tolkien fanatics. The schismatics ranged from Pagans to Necromancers: With Wiccas, Wizards and Ancestral Worshippers, Odinists, Satanists, Psychics and Astrologers. Most of the people in the S.C.A. dabbled in some sort of Sorcery and many of our members belonged to an organized, alternative "Church". The most notorious of these congregations was "The Council of Nine", located just outside of Carbondale in Southern Illinois. The Council of Nine was composed of eight male Witches and a Warlock Priest. At the time it was the most powerful Coven in the Midwest.
The Council of nine had been the subject of gossip for months. They had a reputation for practicing "grey" magic and for using their abilities in impressive displays of power. One of the local Magicians told us a story that he had heard about the Warlock supplying one of his Acolytes with a fire ball. The ritual had taken hours and the Acolyte was subjected to a number of painful tests. In the end he emerged with a vicious magical weapon built into his body. It was rumored that the Acolyte let loose the fire ball during a Magical battle. The Wizard with whom he had fought was seriously defeated. Witnesses claimed that they could actually see a fierce radiation of energy projecting in bursts from the attacker’s body. The victim of the fire ball had been blasted to the ground in a state of delirium. Psychic healers claimed that his astral body had been damaged beyond repair. After that the victim lost weight and became very sick. He never practiced magic again.
The S.C.A. was an organization that promoted cooperation between its secular and its sacred membership. It was one of the few places in America where Wiccas and Animists could come together and openly mingle with their non-witch counterparts. Thus, every Thelemite, every Sabian, every Conjurer and Coven was, in some way associated with the S.C.A. We were a nation onto ourselves and from our ranks would come the congregations of the future. So it was that Maria, the Mad had her first encounter with a member of The Council of Nine.
We were at an event. It took place in a large church. All of Household Clumsy was in attendance. After the feast Dean and I performed our jests for the court. We even sang our original song "Ode to Thorbejorn". After the song Thorbejorn himself gave us each a hug. Then the dancing began. Household Clumsy took this revelry as an opportunity to drink and to meet new people. For some reason there were a lot of magic users at this particular event. I fell in with a circle of D & D freaks hovering around a wild looking man in his late twenties. He had long hair and a beard. His face was drawn and his eyes were squinty as if he had studied for years and years under the influence of drugs. He referred to himself as a Wizard and he told us tales of his attempted conjurations. Of his decade long struggle to master "The Art": His months of terror as he became a victim of his own Demons. My attentive companions were unimpressed the Wizard's stories. I however was fascinated. For the first time since I had joined the S.C.A. I was being told the absolute truth. This Wizard did not fill his stories with colorful tributes to his own vanity. There were no astounding successes. Instead the Wizard described an ongoing spiritual struggle to discover and master the hidden powers of the spirit and unlock the secret doors to Heaven and to Hell. He said that a true user of the Art would have to live alone and work alone for years and years: That the romance of a social Sorcerer was a myth. I was moved by his terrifying account of being trapped in his own dark apartment while monsters slithered back and forth between this world and the next. The Wizard was wise beyond his years and a true source of inspiration to my own magical career.
While I was off on my own, Maria was in the corner talking to a man. He was tall and dark with a pock marked face and a black cape. Whether she had innocently bumped into him or whether he had sought her out and brought her off to the side I do not know. But, I was to find out later that this man was a member of The Council of Nine. Maria was thrilled and a little afraid. She had been sending messages up through the ranks that she was ready for something more powerful than her "Introduction to Voodoo" manual and a clump of incense. She had done the spells and communed with the dead. She had called upon Demons and cursed her foes. Now she was ready for the next step. She knew it and so did the dark man.
Their encounter was brief and the dark man slipped out soon after he had spoken with Maria. I found her later that night drinking and laughing with a group of friends. When she saw me approach she smiled with a patronizing grin.
"Have you been having fun with your dungeons and dragons buddies?" she asked in a superior tone.
"I have been listening to a wizard" I answered. "He had some great stories". Maria pulled me to the side and whispered wetly into my ear.
"I just talked with a Wizard also. A real one. He is the most powerful man that I have ever met. He wants to test me to see how strong I am. He said that he thought I was very powerful. I've never been so excited." With a toss of her hair Maria, the Mad ran off to tell the others about her encounter. She looked beautiful and full of promise. I wished that I were powerful enough to fulfill her magical desires. I went back to my new Wizard friend to hear more stories. Unfortunately he had also left. I never asked him his name.
After this Maria was changed. She seemed happy but lost: Proud and afraid. I took the opportunity to learn all that I could from Tsuka and from Andrea's friend who was a Wicca. It was during this time that the Chicago branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism got the contract to be the Jousting entertainment at the King Richard's Renaissance Faire in Gurnee. I was hired as a sword fighter and I was to fight three bouts per day. Dean, Andrea, Maria and I all went. Almost everybody from Tree Girt See attended. We were to arrive on Friday afternoon and leave on Sunday evening. We did this every weekend for the entire summer of 1976. During these weekends Maria and I had great fun and our relationship had never been better. But as soon as we returned to the Miserable Hovel, Maria would again become moody and despondent. She was obviously waiting for something that never seemed to come.
One evening we were visited by a strange man. He said that his name was not important and that he had driven up from Carbondale to see Maria, the mad. She was not at home and I was suspicious of the man's intentions. Even his appearance was unnerving. He was skinny with thick glasses and a frock of red hair. After some thought Andrea concluded that the man was just a weirdo from SCA, so we let him in and offered him some hot tea. He was reluctant to accept our hospitality. He kept referring back to the fact that he had "business" to attend to with Maria Zirden. The man seemed preoccupied and evasive. He paced around the apartment trying to guess which bedroom belonged to whom. As much as Andrea and I attempted to engage his attention, the strange man showed no interest in us. When he wasn't nosing around he was sitting as if in a Trans. This went on for nearly an hour. Eventually Maria came home.
Andrea and I had hoped that Maria would recognize the strange man but she had no idea who he was or what he wanted. The man would not tell her either. He simply insisted that she return with him to Carbondale. When Maria asked him why she should he panicked saying that he was simply a messenger. He would not say who sent him. If I had been playing a D & D game, I would have cast a "detect magic" spell. The man had the distinct characteristics of a pre-programmed personality. He didn't make sense and he appeared unaware of what was going on around him.
The man began to paw at Maria, hounding her repeatedly until she exploded into a rage and ran into her room slamming the door. I stopped the man from following her while Andrea prepared to call the police. The man kept saying "I have been sent to take her. She must go. She will understand when she gets there. I must take her with me".
It was obvious that the strange man had been sent as a messenger by some lofty magic user in the south. We considered that the Council of Nine could be the source but that seemed unlikely. Still, we had to find out. Instead of the police Andrea called her friend, the old Wicca. Then Andrea brought out her own charms and potions. I moved the zombie-man to a chair where Andrea could work on him. She and I began to sooth the befuddled man. First we anointed him with herbs, then water and salt. Soon Andrea's friend, the Wicca arrived. She assisted Andrea in undoing the spells that bound the zombie-man to the will of his master.
After a number of colorful rituals the man began to change. His breath labored, his face dripped sweat and his eyes welled up with tears.
"Help me" he pleaded as we continued to bombard the man with sounds and symbols. We demanded that he confess his purpose and reveal the source of his instructions. Through his whimpering the man explained that he had been sent by The Council of Nine. He was not a member of The Council nor was he a magician himself. He had been asked by a college friend to visit the members of the coven in Carbondale. The disheveled fellow, who began to refer to himself as Jim, had become a shuddering boy on our couch. It was difficult to connect his frailty with the stern posture of the person who had gripped Maria by the arm and commanded her to obey less than an hour before. Jim drank three glasses of water and his lips were white as he mumbled a description of his journey into the coven's temple. He had foolishly expected a brief and harmless encounter. Instead he was separated from his companion and brought alone to see the Warlock leader, deep in the unholy tabernacle. Jim was examined and questioned with careless inhumanity. After this examination, poor Jim had been taken to a secret ritual room. One of the members of the council told him that their Warlock leader had been quite impressed and he was planning to bestow Jim with a great honor.
Jim described the macabre ritual that followed, consisting of chants, candles and hooded figures. Jim had been forced into a hypnotic state by a tall man in a robe. By the end of this unsettling process the poor victim had lost all sense of self or will. The whimpering man's former state of mind seemed to me to be beyond hypnosis. It was more like a possession. The man had literally programmed to perform his task. The next thing the fellow remembered was waking up in our living room. He said that in between it was like a hallucination.
Andrea and I attempted to glean more from the situation but the man was near to collapse. Finally we realized that we had gotten all we could from the fellow. He fell asleep on the couch while we attempted to unravel the bizarre story to Maria. We expected her to respond with good natured gratitude. Instead she accused us of "meddling" in her personal affairs. She stormed into the living room and woke Jim. He tried to shake off his exhaustion as she bombarded him with questions about the council. Jim had very little information so Maria told him to get out. She had had enough. She handed him a short note that she had written on a torn edge of paper. She told him to give it to the Warlock leader. I never learned what she had written. I only assumed that it contained the message "If you want me don't send then weaklings or dupes. Come yourself".
Andrea, the Wicca and I loaded Jim up with protection charms, Mojo bags, healing potions and a few words of advice. "Don't ever meet with any member of the council of nine again". Then, with a frail apology ushering from his cracked lips, Jim left for the long ride back south.
Exhausted from the ordeal, Maria went to her room. Still, there was a glint of excitement in her eye and I knew that she was fascinated about becoming a member of the council. I imagined that the Warlock would simply use her as a vessel for sex magic. Seeing what they had done to Jim, I could only imagine the abuse that the council had in store for poor Maria. Of course I could have been wrong. Maria had an evil streak which gave her a nasty potential. With the proper guidance those strengths could have been nurtured until Maria was as powerful as anyone. Then she would be given full membership. Maria was actually the type of person that would summon the Devil or kill someone. Maybe the Council of Nine had an even more diabolical expectation for Maria's future.
Over the next few weeks I tried to find out what Maria would do. She had become obsessed with the idea of becoming a member of the Coven. She received a number of mysterious phone calls during this time and they always depressed her. I'm certain that she had spoken with the man from the council whom she had met at the feast. She said that he asked her to come down to Carbondale for a trial period during which time she could decide if she wanted to stay. She liked this idea figuring that she could better see what it was all about. Andrea and I both felt that The Council of Nine would not let Maria go once she had been incorporated into the Coven. We warned Maria of the dangers but she would not listen. She grew angry and accused me of being jealous. She became short tempered and moody. Andrea and I tried to find out as much information as we could about the people whom Maria was dealing with. This task was not difficult.
Maria grew red with anger and excitement. I too was intrigued by the sheer force of such sorcery as the council seemed to posses. I could imagine myself being subjected to those glorious rituals and armed with those mysterious devices. What a thrill for the mind. What an exercise for the spirit. I was certain that Maria burned with an even greater desire to have such power also. To be courted by Warlocks. To hurl fire balls: To destroy her enemies. She was becoming the black widow spider: The spiritual cannibal. Eventually she would consume us all.
It seemed as if Maria had become possessed by her desire for power. She began to believe that she was becoming schizophrenic.
At times this seemed to be the case. She took long walks, cried a lot and would sit in her room for hours performing mysterious ceremonies. But the Dark Man did not come for her. He wanted her to come to him. Over this Maria was torn. Maria could find no relief from the pressure. She felt obliged to accept the Coven's seductive offer. Even I began to imagine The Dark Man's eerie face as an awe inspiring power and an intelligent visage of reason. Andrea had been warned of the Dark Man's ability to seduce people. He was a obviously a charming figure and a notorious hypnotist. Maria knew this and she felt manipulated by both him as well as by Andrea and me. Things seemed to be getting very bad for Maria and so for all of us. Then he came to see her. The Dark Man had finally arrived.
The Dark Man was one of the nine members of the Council.
Whether he was the High Warlock or simply a Minion I did not know. He arrived at the Miserable Hovel unannounced. Dean, Maria, Andrea and I were there. It did not seem strange that the Dark Man had come. We offered him tea. He refused. Instead he wanted to speak with Maria, alone. She was excited to be considered so important. So she went with the Dark Man and they were gone for many hours. Maria never described the conversation. But when she returned she was very sad and she refused to have sex with me. On the other hand she was still in Chicago. She had not gone with him to Carbondale as was his intention. She had not succumbed so easily. He would have to offer her more than sex.
Over the next few weeks I tried to find out what Maria would do. She had become obsessed with the idea of becoming a member of the Coven. She spoke with the Dark Man on the telephone a number of times. He asked her to come down to Carbondale for a trial period during which time she could decide if she wanted to stay. She liked this idea figuring that she could better see what it was all about. Andrea and I both felt that The Council of Nine would not let Maria go once she had been incorporated into the Coven. We warned Maria of the dangers but she would not listen. She grew angry and accused me of being jealous. It seemed as if Maria had been possessed by her desire for power. She began to believe that she was becoming schizophrenic. At times this seemed to be the case. She took long walks, cried a lot and would sit in her room for hours performing mysterious ceremonies. But the Dark Man did not return or if he did then he was secretive. Maria felt no relief from the pressure to accept the seductive offer. Even I began to imagine The Dark Man's eerie face as an awe inspiring power and an intelligent visage of reason. Andrea had been warned of the Dark Man's ability to seduce people. He was a charming figure and a notorious hypnotist.
I began to get in touch with the entities in Maria's room. She had been summoning them for months. At first they seemed harmless but after the visitation of The Dark Man the spirits in her room began to get stronger and more black. People began to feel ill every time they passed the door. Tsuka insisted that the room be closed when ever he was in the apartment. Samwise leaned on the door and was stricken with such horrible pains in his head that he apologized and left. Things seemed to be getting very bad for Maria and so for all of us. Then he came to see her. The Dark Man had arrived.
The Dark Man was one of the nine members of the Council.
Whether he was the High Warlock or simply a Minion I did not know. He arrived at the Miserable Hovel unannounced. Dean, Maria, Andrea and I were there. I did not seem strange that the Dark Man had come.
The dark man seemed even more mysterious than he had appeared at the SCA event. He was wearing his mundane garments but he still seemed costumed. The dark man sat on the couch and spoke to all of us about the choice that Maria was about to make. His voice was low and he seemed wiser than I could have imagined. I met his eyes many times and always it was I who glanced away. Maria too was charmed by this man's words even though in memory they did not seem so special. Still Maria was hesitant. Deep down she was afraid to leave her family and her friends behind. She did not want to become dependant on the dark man for her livelihood. The dark man kept his cool. He touched Maria gently on her hand and he said that he understood. She needed time.
As the sun began to set the dark man prepared to leave. In a gentle voice he requested that Maria conclude her business in Chicago and pack her bags to leave. He said that he would return in two hours to take her away. Then he left. As he passed me he glanced into my eyes for a moment. He was so pure, so right. For a second I wanted to help Maria with her suitcase. Then he passed and the feeling of confidence evaporated and in its place poured forth fear. We were all dumbfounded. Maria's eyes were filled with tears. Silently she went to the closet and removed her suitcase. There were no objections. The dark man had won. Even Andrea was deep in thought as she cleared away the empty tea cups. Only Dean seemed unresolved. "You're not going to go off with that guy are you?" He blurted. Somehow the shrill sound of question seemed foul against the deep and rolling poetry of the dark man's voice. Dean asked me to step outside for a second. Reluctantly I did.
The warm summer breeze seemed to freshen me up a bit and I began to come out of my lethargy. My memory was dim and musty.
The dark man's powers were dim also: An illusive manipulation of shadows and shadows of shadows. In the sunlight his spells fell from me like a crust. Suddenly Dean and I both began talking at once. We were free. It was exhilarating to have been so effected by the psychic abilities of a man. It reaffirmed my belief in the power of the mind. In fact, both of us were so relieved that we exploded with laughter and ran around the alley wrestling. It was as if we had been diagnosed with a terrible disease and then, at the desperate moment of our resolve the diagnosis was declared false. One realizes at that moment that the feelings of helplessness were caused by a lie. Suddenly I understood the power of illusion and the strength that one achieves when they can pass an illusion off as the truth. With this in mind I began to formulate a plan of defense against Sauron.
We returned to the Miserable Hovel to find it depressed and unlit. Maria's bag was packed and Andrea was cutting bread in the kitchen. Neither of them was interested in what Dean or I had to say. They were both resolved to the illusion of the disease. In Andrea's mind Maria had already gone. There was nothing left to talk about. Maria herself grew angry and disgusted at the thought of continuing the confrontation. She just wanted to end it; to go. She was sick and tired of the fear. She wanted the pain to go away. I brought her nothing but a shrill and unnerving voice. I knew what she was feeling. Only Sauron could bring her peace. Only going south would ease her pain and cease our petty nagging. Only the Council of Nine mattered now. That was where her future lay. It was the only path left for her to take. Dean threw up his arms in disgust. I went to my ever expanding box of Occult paraphernalia and began to work on my plan: To battle one illusion with another.
By the time that the two hours was over I had constructed a multitude of powerful looking charms. I placed one charm on the front door, one on the table, one wedged between the cushion on the couch and one at the entrance to Maria's room. Then I made a personal charm for each one of us. I anointed Maria, Andrea and Dean with special protection oil and I left the bottle on the table. I convinced Maria to submit herself to a brief cleansing ritual that would give her the power to do the right thing. Maria was more amenable to my magic than she was to my nagging. We all chanted prayers and swore eternal friendship and agreed that we would try to see beyond the Dark man's hypnotic charms. Maria was stimulated by the idea of challenging the spells that the dark man had cast. I seduced her vanity with challenges to her perceptive powers and praise for her sense of justice. By the time the Dark Man had returned I had transformed the Miserable Hovel and its population into a Coven of our own. No longer was the dark man dealing with an innocent girl trapped in the confines of a foolish household. The Dark Man would have to deal with removing a woman from her family and her home. Most of all The Dark Man would have to penetrate a magical barrier of charms and spells the origins of which he did not know. And at the center of the defense would be me, no longer afraid and no longer silent. Around my neck hung a Thor's Hammer, a Crucifix and a religious talisman from Israel. At my hip was a Mojo bag, a charm and a scroll. I carried with me symbolic gifts from Maria and Andrea and my Wicca associates. I marked myself with ash and oil and blessed my task with spells and prayers. The candles were lit the incense was smoking and I opened the windows to let in the powers of the natural world. I was ready. The dark man would be walking into my ambush. He would be engulfed in the scent of my attack.
The dark man did come but he was not alone. With him were two men, both tall and slender. Both dressed darkly. We tried not to act surprised when we saw the two men and the dark man chose not to comment on the large protection charm which now hung from the front door. Still, I could see in his face that he acknowledged it as a challenge. His eyes wandered the room for more devices. His gazed rolled through us as he searched to discover where his enemy lay. I did not hide from his stare. In fact, I stared back and I kept staring until the dark man had no choice but to smile and turn away. Still I followed, staring. Where ever he went my eyes were on him. At first he seemed not to notice it but soon I caught him purposefully avoiding looking in my direction. He tried so hard to seem unaffected by my gaze that he obviously became preoccupied with it. He also tried not to notice the protection charms and the marks of scented oils on Maria and the rest of us. I could see his mind racing with questions. "Who did this? How powerful are these spells? What do they do? Are there more?"
He and his companions sat down on the couch with Maria's chair pulled close so he could touch her. I sat across from him and continued to stare. Andrea brought tea for everyone. I refused to drink. The dark man sipped his but I could tell that he was uneasy about it. The dark man felt for the object which I had placed in the couch. He saw the symbols laid out on the table. He perceived that we were putting up a fight. He also saw Maria's suitcase packed and ready to go. So he focused on Maria and spoke in low, hypnotic tones only to her. The dark man's companions just sat there like watch dogs. The more I stared at the dark man the more they stared at me. I was confident that they were simply attempting to distract me from my offensive. They would not attack me. Not there, in front of Maria and Andrea. The dark man's power of charm lay in his ability to maintain an illusion. The illusion that he had obligated himself to was one of sober wisdom and kindness. If he grew angry or hurt anyone of us the illusion would end, the spell would break and Maria would be lost. So I was safe. My biggest worry was that the dark man would convince Maria to leave before I could make him angry enough to break the spell. So, I heightened my attack. I began to imagine my own version of a fire ball welling up from my fingers and my toes and traveling slowly into my head. Then when I was completely full I imagined compressing the force into a walnut sized projectile throbbing behind my eyes. Then like a sling shot I blew the energy out of my head and into the face of the dark man. I was pleased with the effect. The dark man paused for a moment and glanced in my direction. Everything stopped. Then he resumed telling Maria how nature had chosen special people to do special things. Mean while I prepared another energy blast. The second one was even more successful causing the dark man to stutter in the middle of a word. By the third blast he refused to even acknowledge me. He just stared into Maria's eyes and whispered to her about how much she meant to his future and the future of his coven. Throughout his speech the dark man kept wincing and stuttering. He even lost his train of thought a number of times. Finally he excused himself and went into the corner with his two companions. They spoke for a moment. I turned to Maria. She was depressed again. It was as if she was addicted to the man's voice and the fantasies of power that it conjured. When he stopped talking the victim of his charm fell into the despair of their own pitiful reality. I knew better than to speak. I touched her shoulder gently and her hand came to mine but she did not look. Then the dark man returned. He locked his gaze into Maria's and told her that they would have to be alone. He told her to ask me to leave. Before I could counter his command Maria said "please go Eric, we want to be alone".
I attempted to put up a struggle but the dark man kept telling her what to say and then she would say it. During this time he never once related to me. He was using Maria as a ventriloquist's doll and Maria couldn't even tell. I turned to go. Andrea and Dean were already at the door accompanied by the dark man's companions. The tides had turned and the dark man was about to win. I walked to the door feeling defeated. I had already lost. It seemed over. But it wasn't. I turned at the door and spoke in a clear voice, "Astoroth, Thelma, Job": three of the names for God. Then I told Maria that I would be right outside the door. Maria seemed invigorated. The dark man was not relieved. I stepped into the hall with Andrea and Dean. No sooner were we out than the door shut behind us leaving Maria alone with the Warlock and his minions.
Andrea was extremely upset. Dean was confused. I was worried. "I am going to get help!" Andrea said. "You stay here". With that she scurried out of the building and into the night. I moved over to the apartment door and sat, trying to hear what was going on inside. Dean paced back and forth helplessly.
Tsuka had been my recent spiritual guide. I wondered what he would have done in such a situation. I figured that the first thing that he would do was attack everyone and beat them to a pulp. If Tsuka was in a spiritual mood then he would most likely have Astral Projected and attacked his enemy's ethereal bodies in another dimension. I had always wanted to astral project. I had longed for a chance to try. So, there, in the hallway, I attempted it.
My goal was simple. Pass through the wall and continue to blast the dark man with energy balls. Dean figured that I was doing something goofy so he stayed out of it. I used visualization techniques to imagine the entire apartment. I tried to see every detail. I tried to forget my body and imagine that I was in the apartment. It began to work. I could even hear mumbled sounds through the door more and more loudly. Soon I saw the dark man sitting on the couch with Maria while his two helpers were in the chairs. The man spoke closely and softly to Maria as she stared into his eyes. They were holding hands. I welled up my energy, condensed it and blasted. The dark man seemed not to notice. I welled up, condensed and blasted again: Again no effect. I got closer and closer until I could see right into his pimply face. Then I summoned up all of my force and blasted him right in the head. He winced and stuttered. I had connected. I changed my angle and blasted. I got even closer and blasted. I drained myself over and over again blasting the man until I saw him get up. I could even hear the noises through the door getting louder and more agitated. He was demanding that Maria make a decision. He was sick of wasting his time. He thought that she wanted to be a part of the council. She had asked him to come to her. He had. Now it was her turn. The dark man grew angry and began to pace back and forth ranting that Maria owed him. I could see Maria becoming disgusted at the notion of owing anybody anything. I blasted again and again. I could hear the yelling through the door. It got louder and angrier. But this time it wasn't a man's voice; it was Maria's voice. The spell had been broken. She was free. I was yanked out of my Trans by the vibrations of approaching feet. Andrea entered the hallway followed by Tsuka. My face lit up with joy and I felt a rush of fatigue come over me as I released the responsibility to my mentor.
"I have been sending energy to you, to help you" he said, grabbing my shoulders.
"It has been well spent" I responded, collapsing back onto the steps. The voice of Maria was dull behind the thick door, but there was no doubt that she was yelling. Andrea banged on the door and then opened it with her key. She and Tsuka poured into the apartment. Dean stayed with me.
"Are you alright" he asked. I nodded, resting my head on the step. After a few moments I felt someone passing me. It was the dark man followed by his helpers. On his way out he looked me in the eye. No longer was he a foe. Our encounter had come to a conclusion. No longer was he casting spells. His look was honest and real and powerful. I saw that he was truly a magician. Deep down, below his intentions dwelt a wealth of power. I looked up at him, exhausted. He smiled and nodded. Our match was over. I nodded back. Then, with a sparkle in his eye he turned and disappeared into the night. I never saw him again.
After the exhaustion went away I became exhilarated. I wanted to be thanked, patted on the back, acknowledged. Instead my victory was ignored. Andrea and Dean went about their business as usual. Maria went back to her dismal state of depression. Tsuka went home and I put away my Mojo bags. Aside from the solemn mood everything went back to normal. But I was not satisfied. Even though the immediate threat of the Council seemed to have been removed I felt that the core of the problem was not yet gone. Maria was not herself. The demonic glint in her eye was still there and as long as it remained then Maria would be open to many dangers. The dark man could return. Another Coven could approach her. She could still do great evil. For months she had summoned spirits into her room. For weeks it had become an unbearable location in the apartment. Until the demons were addressed Maria would be vulnerable and my victory would be incomplete.
I began to get in touch with the entities in Maria's room. She had been summoning them for months. At first they seemed harmless but after the offerings of The Dark Man the spirits in her room got stronger and blacker. People began to feel ill every time they passed the door. Tsuka insisted that the room be closed when ever he was in the apartment. Samwise leaned on the door and was stricken with such horrible pains in his head that he apologized and left. I decided to Astral Project in the room to see what was really there.
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Last edited 08/20/2008