a diary
"You don't believe in everyday magic, do you my dear," criticised Mr Monkfish.
He had been toying with a bag of healing crystals, aligning my aura or some such nonsense, and encouraging Sole to set up a brass Tibetan singing bowl and light some joss sticks.
We had reached London, finally, and Mr Monkfish had installed us in what he called a 'safe house': an apartment overlooking the Thames, with two miniscule bedrooms and an even smaller bathroom. The kitchen, such as it was, amounted to no more than a gas range, a modern icebox, and a sink stood in the corner of the living space. There were a pair of Chesterfields – not a proper suite – placed to either side of a low wooden surface that Monkfish referred to as the "coffee table", and a large television set. But it was convenient for the Savoy, and the underground station, and there was a large picture window with a view over the Embankment to the river and the Southbank opposite.
I may have remarked that the low thrumming reverberation and the heavy scent of the incense were making my head to ache.
"Manipulating the subtle forces? Calling on the sprits?" I replied mockingly. "No, no I do not."
"But you believed in prayer."
"That's different. In my guardian's house it was expected. God was just there, to be taken for granted. Like another bookshelf."
"God as a bookshelf. I believe you may have invented a new heresy.
I delivered him a withering look.
"In ancient times," he changed tack, "in Sumer and Egypt, religion and magic were one and the same, a matter of going to the priests and negotiating with higher powers. Foreign powers. Until Constantine got all Christian on them. The one God does not do deals; He issues commandments. And Constantine had the power of the Roman legions to enforce them. All those rich temples abolished in the name of a religion of poverty. Clever old Constanine, eh. And so all the old priests were out of a job."
"So, they turned into magicians overnight?"
"As if by magic? Why not? People still wanted their prayers answered or their curses delivered."
"Do you subscribe to the beliefs of witchcraft, then? That we are surrounded by dæmons to call upon? To tempt and beguile us?"
"By no means, dearest one. We are surrounded by chains. The web of mist and words. The structures put in place to keep us in order. By the Order. And for the Order. We must attune if we are to see how we are bound, if we are to slip ourselves free."
And to be fair to him, each morning, he would rise, at six or eight or ten, depending on his mood – he was always late to bed – and after his ablutions, would sit on a leather stool, ankles crossed, and hands palm up on his knees, one eye open, breathing.
This meditation was his daily practice; to know yourself, he pronounced, was the first obligation of any mage.
"So I should just have a little faith?"
"Irony," he snorted, "the appeal to supernatural evil is itself a prison. If only faith can save us from the devil, we are slaves to the unprovable majesty of revealed truth, and the authority that wields it."
"And who cast these 'chains'? Is it god? Or those you say call themselves gods, these Trinomen?"
"By the Order. And for the Order," he repeated. "History is the chains they put on time. Let the chains shatter."
He snapped his fingers.
With a clatter, the crystal stones on the table jumped and fell.
I started.
"Mr Monkfish," I declared, "you are a man of reason, a man of science; why do you traffic in this cheap conjuring?"
He spread his hands, placating, and smiled, penitently.
"I use certain techniques, you know this. Focus, memory, visualisation, intuition. These are the keys to ritual."
"Magic spells?"
"The odd incantation perhaps."
"But Mr Monkfish," I had to protest, "I have seen you work your magic - you use tools, machines, electrickery."
His eyes crinkled and I knew that I had misspoken the word.
But the point was still true. Monkfish could work – would work, when he applied himself – with dedicated focus to prepare the most cunning devices, using saw, hammer and file, or tweezers and fine-point screwdriver, hair-thin wire and dots of solder, jeweller's loupe to his eye, a rag and red rouge for polish to hand.
"But of course," he replied, undismayed. "The forging of amulets, the mixing of potions, the transcribing of grimoires: these are the workings of technology.
"The rituals, the invocations, the chanting or the gestures, even the occasional primal scream," he winked, "the natural, magical patterns of discussion, these are all ways to access altered states of consciousness: euphoria or paranoia or catatonia.
"The realms of physical matter and energy interact with those of time and space and with those of observation and awareness. Through altered states of consciousness, we change how we perceive time, or space, or even matter itself.
"Let me show you."
He gathered up those healing crystals and scattered them on the table in front of him in a shower of colour.
"Ruh-ruh red and yellow and puh-puh pink and green," recited Sole in a sing-song voice. "Orange and puh-puh purple and blue."
"Jaspar and Citrine, Rose quartz and Vermarine, Carnelian and Amethyst and blue Blue Agate."
Monkfish picked out each stone in turn, and then rearranged them into a spectrum, red through to violet.
"You are schooled in the energy wheels of the subtle body."
"I am familiar with the chakras of the tantric and yogic traditions, yes. As a meditation technique of the Buddhist and Hindu Gurus."
"And," he chuckled, "their efficacies as pressure points for their proximity to the nervous plexuses."
"You taught me those lessons yourself."
He wasn't the only one to practice. Each morning, I trained with Mr Sole in self-defence.
"Quite so, quite so" he acknowledged. "So, you already see the – primitive – map of the body: brain, eyes, throat and heart, liver and guts and, pardon your blushes, sexual organs."
He picked out each crystal again, turning them over between his index fingers, fussing over their alignment, and describing each in turn.
"Jaspar for the grounding, taking energy from the earth, from the mother, filling up cock or cunny with potency.
"Carnelian for the cleansing, passing the energy up through the guts, up the spine from coccyx to sacrum, where the vertebrae fuse with hips.
"Citrine for the abundance, transforming the earthly energies with the power of the sun, up through solar plexus to stomach and liver.
"Vermarine for the healing, proof against bitterness, charging the heart with the force of righteous emotion, love and anger.
"Agate for stability, overcoming negativity to speak truth with confidence, connecting to the voice.
"Amythest for protection, the power of the mind, the power of the sign, opening the third eye and releasing the inner strength.
"And the pink Hyaline for the spirit, joining with the potential of the universe here at the crown of the skull."
Then, he picked the stones up again. Cupping them between his palms, he shook them once and opened his hands to reveal a single clear crystal, cut and polished, triangular in section. He held it up to the window and the sunlight was cast in a rainbow across the table surface.
"Newton's alchemy," he illuminated, "We are all prisms: taking the energies of the universe and diffracting or combining them."
He turned the prism over again and it was his tarot deck. How he loved to indulge himself with these acts of prestidigitation.
Springing lightly to his feet, he stepped close to me.
"You permit the laying on of hands?" he asked gently.
I assented with a gruff: "very well."
He acknowledged my consent with the slightest bow and then, reaching out an arm, placed his third finger lightly near the top of my sternum, above my breasts.
"Green for the heart," he spoke like a liturgy.
He moved his hand, placing his index finger crossways beneath my chin.
"Blue for the voice," he continued.
He moved his hand again, to put his third finger on my forehead, above and between my brows.
"Indigo for the ajna, the third eye," he intoned.
Finally, he placed his palm flat on the top of my head.
"And lilac for the crown," he concluded.
"Well, that was just nonsense," I replied.
"But you feel better, don't you."
"I…."
He was right, of course, the infuriating man. My headache was gone.
"Suggestion," I snapped. "A Placebo."
"Is that not the power of the mind?" he suggested slyly. "Is that not how magic works?
"We respond to ritual: the clicking of prayer beads, the chime of cymbals, the motions of the blessings – all these induce a frisson of paraesthesia, a synaesthetic shiver, like the satisfaction some receive from the intimate intrusion of the masseuse or the hairdresser. We feel something, and so we believe.
"We make a sacrifice: our mind rewards us that we have purchased an exchange.
"We feel better for having done something."
"Is any of that real, though?" I asked.
"Does it have to be, if it works?"
"But… people made of rainbows, Mr Monkfish? Really?"
"You prefer slugs and snails and puppy-dogs' tails, perhaps?"
"No, but really?" I said again.
"You're obsessed with what is 'real', my dear, I've said it before.
"If I tell you there is a garden in the sun, in the valley of the Firebirds, where the Jade Emperor grows the peaches of immortality…"
He reached out to the sunlight with an empty hand, turned his wrist very slightly, and brought back a peach, or no, a nectarine, its golden-orange skin shiny and smooth. He took a huge bite, juice dribbling down his chin, and offered it to me, his eyes fixing on mine. I accepted a delicate peck. I felt a shudder go through me: the sunlight, the story, the intensity of his look. The fruit, it tasted… magical.
"Now, tell me does it matter if that is real?"
I shook my head, fondly. The fruit certainly tasted real. It was typical of him to hint that his magic was all illusion, and then do something… ridiculous.
"And the reds and greens and blues?"
"Well…" he seemed to concede. "I see your heart's star as golden, for one thing. That's very rare. My own is, of course, blue-white; while Mr Sole's is a very common ruby red, like most people."
"You see people as colours?"
"I see luminous beings, dear one, complex patterns of energies and empathies, apes and angels."
"Do you call upon Angels now?"
He replied in a chant: "Michael before me; Gabriel behind me; Raphael to my right; Uriel on my left side." I could not place the hymn.
"As above, so below." he expounded. "Mercy and Revelation; Healing and Repentance. And Raguel for Justice, and Saraquel for Knowledge, and Remiel for Hope. And Samael, of course."
"Of course. Where would be without Death?" I was sarcastic again.
"Wasn't that always the way of it? Asking for intercession? Whether it was Horus and Thoth, or Thor and Frigga, or all the Saints and Martyrs. A problem shared is a problem doubled, but a problem handed over to the gods is gone forever. Personally, though, I think they'd be a bit busy."
"So, you are a priest, after all."
"Perhaps I am," he confessed. "Let me show you my temple," he announced, picking up the tarot deck again.
Swiftly he thumbed through the cards until he found the ones he wanted, drawing out the first decade of the major arcana.
"As above so below;" he declared, tossing down the cards. "The heavens are the body. And the stars are out of joint.
"Permit me to demonstrate."
He then proceeded to lay them out.
At the top he placed the Magician.
"Eloion," he proclaimed, "silver city of the dawn, seat of the Order, home of the gods, the Crown that commands."
In the second row he placed The High Priestess and the Empress.
"The eyes that see. The domain of the Minds," he pronounced. "Elderrun, shadowworld of the Charm and Everlorn, of the orchards, heart of the realms of the Mab."
Below these, on the third row, he put The Emperor crossed with The Hierophant.
"The voices of authority," he declared. "The Kingdom of Men. Throne, that was once called Eden, garden of the Argai, seat of the Emperor, dominion of a thousand worlds. The brass neck that rules."
Next, for the fourth row, he put down the Lovers. And below it, side by side, the Chariot and Fortitude.
"The sphere of the Machines," he averred. "Elund, the cloudy gas giant of the Ellagab. Esha, that is also known as Vault, of the Azzarine, for the banks and crypts that cling to the canyons and crevices of the strange, shattered surface of its frozen oceans. And Eon, red desert war world of the Varair, filled with factories and fighting grounds. Heart and stomach and liver: the engines that keep it all running.
"It's a simple map of the universe," he concluded.
"And where are we?" I asked.
"Hmmm," Monkfish mused.
On the sixth row he put down the Hermit.
"Fallen," he stated.
He paused.
"You have one card left," I observed.
"I do." Still he paused, apparently unwilling to complete his tangram.
Finally, at the bottom, he placed the Wheel of Fortune.
"And there is Exatrens," he confessed.
Mr Sole silenced the singing bowl. The quiet was startling. I glanced over at him, just for a moment, seeing his hand resting on the copper rim to still the vibrations, and by the time I looked back, Mr Monkfish was gone, vanished, slipping away into time, or out the door, I could not tell.
Leaving his cards, as it were, on the table.
