The Mystical Mountain

I am sure that many bookworms end up at least once in their lives reading something that absolutely blows their mind. It sure happened to me on the summer when I was 17 years old. The book in question was The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, translated into English. It was my first foray into ancient Hindu scripture. I was not prepared for what I would encounter! What I expected was exotic and unfamiliar terminology, images, analogies and metaphors: these I certainly got in spades. But what I did not expect was not one but many creation stories – none of which tallied with each other. This took my simplistic, literal mind for an absolute loop. I asked myself, “Which one of these creation stories is true? How can I tell which one is true? They can’t all be true, can they?” And then the tension of maintaining a literal mindset collapsed: and I said to myself, “Yes, each of these creation stories are true in their own metaphorical way. Don’t even think of taking any of these literally.” And once that different perspective settled in my mind, I could enjoy what I was studying and absorb a lot of what it was willing to treat.

It is traditionally believed that there are in total 108 Upanishads. I have not read all of them; just fifteen (so far) have I read. The word “Upanishad” means “to sit close” (as in, close to the teacher) and these were the teachings provided at the end of the four Vedas (hence, the Upanishads are also called “vedanta”). The Upanishads, along with the Vedas as a whole, were – and still are – transmitted orally from generation to generation for millennia. And they are learned with such precision that schools in far corners of India which lost contact from each other for centuries, have been found to still be identical, syllable by syllable and intonation by intonation.

The Upanishads are far from uniform: the Mandukya Upanishad, at twelve verses, is the shortest; the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, is the longest, at six chapters. But neither of these Upanishads are my favourite; no, that distinction goes to the Katha Upanishad. Why is it my favourite? Partially because it is told in the form of a single story – and I am a sucker for stories! And partially it is because of the topic discussed in the story: that is, the mystery of life and death and what are the basic components of being human. Being raised in a Christian culture, I was familiar with the concept of the body and the soul; and, obviously, the mind is separate from both. But I did not clearly understand the relationship among these three. The Katha Upanishad introduced me to other components of myself and explained the relationship among these parts using an image that is impossible to forget. The one thing that bothered me, however, was the use of the term ‘Self’ in translations, but I find that for the non-Hindu, the term ‘Soul’ is easier to relate to, and so I have used it in my retelling of the Katha Upanishad. I make no claim to be a great intellectual: pile a lot of abstractions on me and I am guaranteed to fall asleep. But if you give me a story and clear visual images, I can easily digest a whole heap of abstractions!

The Katha Upanishad is part of the Yajur Veda. It is a medium-length Upanishad, at 117 verses.

The story begins with a priest, by name of Vajashrava, conducting a ritual sacrifice with the hope of achieving all that his heart desires. His teen-age son, Nachiketas, was observing nearby. Being a teenager, Nachiketas looked at the sacrifice critically. He observed that his father was giving away cows as part of the sacrifice – but the cows were old, barren and would not be able to yield any milk to the recipients. He says to his father, “What good can come of this?” (That is, why would one offer the least valuable things in one’s sacrifice instead of the best, seemingly following the letter, but not the spirit, of sacrifice.)

After watching this apparent hypocrisy, Nachiketas turns to his father and asks him, “Father, to whom will you give me?” Being busily engaged in reciting the ritual prayers (mantras) which must not be interrupted, Vajashrava did not reply. Nachiketas asked this question a second time, and then a third time. By this time, his father was really pissed off: he turned to his son and said to him, “To Death I give you, Nachiketas!” (The colloquial equivalent would be “Go to Hell!”)

Nachiketas may have been annoyingly inquisitive, but he was not an idiot. He reflected upon his father’s pronouncement and, in a spirit of sacrifice, said to himself, “May my father today achieve his purpose by offering me to Death… We humans wither like corn in the field, and yet, like grain cast on the ground, we are born again. To the realm of Yama, the God of Death, I now go.”

When Nachiketas reached the Realm of Death, he found that Yama (the God of Death) was not home. So, he sat down inside Yama’s house and waited. For three days and nights he waited without taking any food or water.  

When Yama returned home and saw Nachiketas sitting there, he said to the boy, “For three nights you have waited, honoured guest; let me now offer you my belated greetings.” Knowing that Nachiketas was a Brahmin, he was fearful of the consequences of not showing him hospitality. Yama then asked Nachiketas to ask any three wishes and promised to grant them.

The boy’s first wish was that he be returned to the world of the living, welcomed by his father, and with no disharmony with his father. Yama promised him that his father will embrace him with joy and that he will live a long life.

Nachiketa’s second wish was to learn the sacred fire ritual from Yama, as the fire ritual is essential means for being able to enter heaven. Yama then revealed to his eager guest the essence and particulars of the sacrificial fire; Nachiketas repeated back to the God of Death everything that he had been taught. Yama then declared that henceforth the ritual will be called the Nachiketas Sacrificial Fire. He further declared that whoever commits mind, reason and spirit to lighting such a fire, and who engages in the three sacred duties of motiveless action, charity, and self-discipline, will go beyond the cycle of birth and death and attain the supreme peace of heaven.

Then Nachiketas stated his third wish: that Yama tell him what happens to a person when life leaves the body. The God of Death demurred, telling him, “It is an extremely complex matter; even the gods are confused about this, and so it will be too difficult for you to understand. I suggest that you choose something else, such as a long life, swift horses, majestic elephants, gold and wealth, dominion over the earth as a mighty king, beautiful women, fine chariots, heavenly music, great progeny who will live to a ripe old age, a guaranteed place in heaven – choose any of these, but do not ask about life beyond life.”

Nachiketas wisely replied to Yama, “But you understand that these things that you offer me will all pass away; please keep them – all of them. Wealth and beauty do not satisfy a person who is on their deathbed. I have no other questions and choose no other wish.”

Defeated by the boy’s obstinacy, he went on to teach Nachiketas the secrets of life, death, and what makes us human.

The God of Death said:

“There are two paths that can be tread in life: one leads outward and the other leads inward. The outward way leads to pleasure; the inward way leads to grace. It is the path of grace that leads to the Soul. These two paths eternally lie before each person: day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment. The foolish, using no discrimination, choose to walk the path of pleasure, while the wise must distinguish between these two paths and choose which one to take. You, Nachiketas, rejected all the objects of desire that I offered you – thus, you have chosen to walk the path of grace.”

“These paths lead in opposite directions: one leads to knowledge, the other to ignorance. You clearly desire knowledge, Nachikas, for you spurned the objects of pleasure.”

“The path of grace does not reveal itself to the person who blunders through this world totally committed to it and its limitations. It is a subtle, hidden path that is never revealed to one who thinks that this world is all that there is. And who, thinking so, falls again and again into my (i.e., Death’s) hand.”

“This Soul cannot be reached by reasoning or debate; it must manifest itself through a teacher who himself wholly knows the Soul.”

“That Soul which you wish to know, which is subtle and difficult to see, is there deep within the deepest part of you. Fix all your thinking and all your inquiry on that ancient, radiant Soul. Having heard this truth, you must embrace it completely. Continue separating the eternal from the ephemeral and you will attain full realization of that most inner, most exquisite Soul – the source of true joy.”

“The single imperishable sound – Om – will lead you where you wish to go. Whether you wish to know the Soul as embodied in flesh or as it transcends embodiment, Om will lead you there.”

“That pure consciousness, which is the all-knowing, indwelling Soul is neither born nor does it die. It did not originate from anything, nor has it ever become anything; unborn, undying, constant – it lives when this body dies.”

“Smaller than the smallest particle of an atom, and yet more vast than the whole expanse of space – this Soul resides in the heart of all beings.”

“The person who has not attained tranquillity or is corrupt, who has not turned away from the brief satisfactions of this world and attained stillness of mind – such a person cannot know the Soul, though learned beyond compare.”

“Imagine that the Soul is seated in the back of a chariot. The body is the chariot and awareness is the driver. Think of the reins the driver is holding is the mind. The senses are the horses that those reins lead to, and the world and its many objects are the terrain the chariot moves along. The Soul, when it is in harmony with the body, mind, and senses, is the enjoyer of the world and the doer of all actions. So say the wise.”

“The foolish have minds that are scattered everywhere, with senses that race after everything, like horses with the bit between their teeth. They are unlike the wise, whose awareness grasps the mind firmly, guiding the senses along the rocky pathway of the world like an alert charioteer. However, one who fails to remember the presence of that radiant Soul in the heart of the chariot, who becomes careless and corrupt, cannot reach the goal that the Soul directs the chariot towards.”

“With properly discriminating awareness as the driver; a mind like steady reins directing the senses; and a body that is steadfast, one reaches That which provides a dwelling place within Itself for all.”

“More powerful than the senses are the desires that compel them. More powerful than the desires is the mind that formulates them. More powerful than the mind is the awareness which organizes it. And more powerful than the awareness is the Soul.”

“The only way to be delivered from the jaws of death is by seeking out That which is without taste, touch, sound or colour; which cannot be decayed by time; which is beginningless and endless. That which is ever present, yet beyond reach of the awareness, is That from which even awareness is born.”

“Approach life with a mind sharpened by your practices and see the One in the many. As long as you see diversity you will go from death the death. Cease this wandering and embrace your oneness.”

“Like rain on a high ground which flows down into rocky ravines, who sees only diversity, will run here, there and everywhere. Like pure water poured into pure water, the person who sees the One becomes the One.”

“Listen, and I will tell you the secret of the Eternal and the Soul, the secret of That which lives after death… That Soul is the immortal and the transcendent – the ground of all beings. There is nothing beyond That.”

“Just as fire is fire no matter when or where it burns, that One is all things no matter what their form. It is That which is within all, and it is That which transcends all.”

“There is only one Power, and it is That which is in the hearts of all. Whoever knows this to be true gains eternal peace. It is the Soul in the heart of all things which is the eternal amidst the ephemeral.”

“Let the five senses and the mind they serve become still. Let awareness itself cease all activity and become watchful. Then you will have begun your journey on the highest path. This is Yoga. But beware: remain ever vigilant. For even this state of Yoga can ebb and flow.”

“When your heart is free of all the desires that now surround it. You will stand at the gates of immortality before that Soul.”

Yama, the God of Death, finished his teaching to Nachiketas as follows:

“That Inner Being is there, present in the hearts of all. Bring all that you are before That – draw it out as you would a shaft from the centre of a reed. Know this pure and immortal Truth.”

What did this teaching accomplish for Nachiketas? When he first entered the Realm of Death, he was already free from the dualities of vice and virtue as well as free from desire and ignorance. But with the aid of the teaching provided to him by Yama, Nachiketas was able to merge with the Soul.

Reading this as a teen, I took myself to be Nachiketas and the teachings of Yama as being directed to me. The teachings of the Katha Upanishad became a cornerstone of my personal philosophy at that time and has stayed with me right to the present. And for that I am grateful. It is a gem of world philosophical heritage, right up there with the teachings of Socrates and Epictetus. At least, that’s the way I see it.

Just about any technology or a tool from a suite which constitutes a technology can be seen as a double-edged sword: there’s the intended effect (as per those who design it) and either the unintended effect (use by others whose views differ from those of the designers) or unforeseen/unintended consequences of the technology/tool. Examples from the past are too numerous to mention and I suspect that just about everybody agrees with this statement to the point that it has become an axiom.

I’ve haven’t been a fan of modern technology since I was about 15 years old. It was right around that time – 1980 or so – that whatever new-fangled tech was being shouted about from the rooftops as being ‘wonderful’ or ‘revolutionary’ or whatever just seemed to be stupid, manipulative, a money-maker for those who already have too much money, or just plain evil. I still think that things were perfectly fine, technologically speaking, by 1980 and I would not shed a tear if I woke up tomorrow morning to find that all post-1980 technologies had magically disappeared. Had I been born to an Amish family, I doubt that I would have left the community.

That being said, I have reluctantly accepted that in order to function in the modern tech-obsessed and tech-burdened society, I have to hold my nose and just accept these things as ‘the way things are.’ Hence, I am composing this piece on a laptop rather than paper and fountain pen.

I guess one of the main reasons I have problems with modern technologies is that I can always see how those interest groups (primarily political and business) can – and do – use these to their own benefit and the general society’s, and/or the individual’s, detriment. The most egregious use, in my opinion, is for propaganda. I suppose it has been true since the days of clay tablets in ancient Babylon, but that does not mean that I like it.

So, while I strictly (one may even say “religiously”) avoid using ‘AI’ for the purpose of synthesizing information, I do not mind consuming ‘AI’ for cultural purposes, especially memes. The current ideology that is in power in most of the West has been so ham-fisted and “all-in” in its full-spectrum dominance of all media in order to crush all competing ideologies that it richly deserves to be mocked via memes. Just to be clear, while I have my own political leanings, I believe the same can be said if the “glove” were on the “right hand” instead of the “left hand”. Authoritarianism is authoritarianism: full stop. And I’m not cool with that; it is alien to my culture and heritage, and I see no reason to change.

It has been with great alarm that I have watched the land of my ancestors – the British Isles – in recent years make a quantum leap towards a ‘1984’-like dystopia. Not as though it is much better in the rest of the Anglosphere, the West in general, or even many countries around the world, but in many respects, I see Britain as a ‘canary in the coal mine.’

Case in point: it has recently become common knowledge that the UK Home Office commissioned the creation of a video ‘game’ called “Pathways” for children aged 11 – 18 years to ‘play’ in school. The aim of the game was to find out which children were prone to ‘wrong think’ and quickly address it through a ‘re-education’ program. The protagonist of the Pathways game is a gender-neutral character named “Charlie” who faces various social situations where there are decision-points. The wording of each of the three choices that Charlie must make at such points is so full of ‘progressive’ bias that it is breathtaking (for example, looking at government statistics to fact-check information broadcast on the mainstream media is considered ‘right-wing extremism’). Charlie has a few friends in this game, including the antagonist named “Amelia.” Oh, Amelia’s a baddie, she is! Hair dyed purple and wearing a black choker, this “goth” girl (LOL, she’s clearly punk, but we’ll let that slide) harbours dangerous, illegal thoughts such as Britain should belong to the British (that is, the “reprehensible” attitude that her ancestors had while fighting continental aggressors for countless centuries) and honouring war veterans and the war dead who fought against the Nazis. Amelia ‘lures’ Charlie into attending protests by British patriots and perform other unspeakably ‘evil’ deeds (that is, deeds protected by the Magna Carta, British common law and the English Constitution). Of course, it never occurred to the loonies who created the Pathways game that a red-blooded male who encounters a brave, opinionated female who harbours the same deep societal values that he does (you know, like the way Winston was attracted to Julia in ‘1984’ – which, of course, they have not read), or even a Brit of either gender who has a reasonable amount of self-respect, would find her appealing. Talk about being out of touch with reality!

This demented, canned, thought-control experiment was foisted on the hapless teens and pre-teens of Yorkshire in 2023. And there Amelia and the other characters were imprisoned in their two-dimensional animated world (very similar in style to the British children’s cartoon ‘Peppa Pig’) until January 8, 2026. On that particular day, some tech-savvy young man discovered Amelia, found her rebellious character to be attractive, and let her free on the Internet via memes. And she has taken off like a rocket! It is all spontaneous and organic: hundreds of content creators have channelled the energy of Amelia and shared it with the world, for free; and Amelia’s voice has been magnified and amplified by the popular response to these memes.

By January 15, the British government had got word that AI-generated versions of Amelia were popping up on the ‘X’ platform, sticking to character, full of English pride, waving the Union Jack and wearing a shirt bearing St. George’s Cross, and saying the most “horrible” things like why she loves England. I’m sure the squeals of terror and outrage by the bureaucrats were heard on the Moon! Oh, Amelia has been captured by far-right violent extremist radicals! By January 25, British newspapers sounded the alarm claiming that the character of Amelia had been ‘subverted’. A call was made out to leftist content creators to ‘reclaim’ Amelia to the woke side – but that was a fool’s errand: she’s a rebellious teenage punk (duh!), how is she going to be converted into a goose-stepping pro-mass-migration propagandist?

Amelia has exploded over the Internet. Memes and brief animated videos of every imaginable style – from the original flat ‘Peppa Pig’ style to the more classical AI style to Manga and more – have been popping up on ‘X’, Youtube, Facebook, and every other social media platform that supports visual media. One of the beauties of the Amelia phenomenon is that her memes spout pro-English statements that would these days get an English native thrown in jail – but one can’t arrest or jail a meme! Amelia speaks for a huge swath of the English population that is not OK with being shamed for being English but is now afraid to speak in public or even “tweet” their patriotic feelings because since 2017 more than 65,000 Brits were jailed for communicating such sentiments! The inability to arrest Amelia must be driving the current regime in Britain mad in frustration. Their own creation, who was meant to be a ‘cautionary example, has slipped from their grasp. The genie cannot be put back in the bottle!

So, what kind of things has Amelia been up to in this flood of memes over the past month? Among other things she has: waxed poetic in pubs and on park benches about how she like English food, fashion and dogs; removed graffiti from Stonehenge; spent time with contemporary British icons such as Peppa Pig, Wallace and Gromit, and Harry Potter; travelled in time to hang out with King Arthur in his quest for the Holy Grail, meet William Wallace and the lads at Stirling Bridge, lead an English crusade to battle, pal around with Robin Hood and his band of merry men in Sherwood Forest, and have a taste of life in 1960s London; called Kier Starmer a ‘wanker’ to his face and replaced him as Prime Minister; and gone overseas to meet her equivalents in Ireland (Amelia Fagan), Germany (named Maria), France (Marie) and Sweden (whose name escapes me). Amelia has been recruiting allies such as James Bond and Judge Dredd. She even went to Buckingham Palace and “converted” the monarchy: there is a meme of King Charles saying, “Call me Charlie now. England for the English!” and Camilla has dyed her hair light purple and changed her name to “Camelia”. And now Amelia has a Manga movie trailer (in Japanese!) entitled “Amelia: The Last Rose of Albion.” Her meme never sleeps!

Also, there have been a number of identifiable traditional English music “sung” by Amelia (thanks to AI, of course). They include “Rule Britannia”, “Land of Hope and Glory”, “I Vow to Thee, My Country”, “Abide with Me” (a popular hymn, sung by her in honour of Britain’s fallen soldiers) and – to crown them all – the immortal verses of Blake’s poem “Jerusalem”:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On England’s pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England’s green & pleasant Land.

The most gloriously cogent Amelia “meme” that I have found so far is a music video called “A Million Amelias” created by a brilliant and supremely talented computer generation artist by the name of Skyebrows. It dropped ten days ago, and I understand that it is now number one on Spotify and has gone hypersonic on ‘X’. It is also on YouTube (link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3B4524ot5BM) where it has already generated over 500k views. Not only is the AI-generated tune catchy and the lyrics cutting, but the mix of visual styles representing Amelia is wide and the level of editing applied to the numerous AI videos that have been seamlessly and rhythmically stitched together in the final product is breathtaking. And for those who are plugged into the zeitgeist to some degree, the amount of homage paid to rebellious content creators, counter-culture figures and great figures of England’s glorious past packed into a short video – without taking away from the “star of the show” (Amelia herself) – is truly something. It has also pushed the AI generator right to the edge of its technical capabilities (for now, anyway). The video sings of:

The girl they created and couldn’t control / Amelia girl was such an own goal...
Purple shadow recast, coronated our queen / not meant to be based, but you came out clean…
Tried to shut it all down but she ran a full lap / waifus laughed in chorus, the meme’s on tap…
But echoes don’t die when you know the name / and slamming the lid is just boosting the fame…
Now there’s a million Amelias / girl’s appeal was revealed, ya.

This video has taken Ameliamania to the next level.

While I find the whole Amelia phenomenon to be fascinating from a cultural perspective, I am always looking inward to determine if there is something deeper afoot. Must cultural phenomena and fads are superficial and just a “flash in the pan”; but not all. When I see depth, I like to dive in and see what I can find in the murky depths of the human unconscious and/or supernatural/Divine forces that may be at play. I certainly find that Amelia possesses depth.

A discussion on John Michael Greer’s ‘Magic Mondays’ space on Ecosophia this week raised the topic of Amelia regarding what this AI-generated ‘waifu’ is manifesting. In her recent blog on Amelia, Kimberly Steele suggested that Amelia was, in fact, self-generated. Fascinating thought! 

As a mystic who sees the Divine infused in every atom of creation and pervading every level of the occultist version of the “multiverse”, I believe that a Divine “something” is bursting through the British collective consciousness (and now beyond the borders of the Albion) in the avatar of Amelia. But who could it be? I cannot say with certainty, as I am not familiar enough with the various goddesses of Celtic Britain, but I do see that Amelia’s energy is protective rather than aggressive. Depictions of Amelia, and discussions of her, have also focused on her as a modern British equivalent of Joan of Arc – understandably so. I am also reminded of Boudica, Celtic Queen of the Iceni tribe, who was the bane of the Roman occupiers in the years 60 and 61 AD. Also, Amelia has been depicted as the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legend (where, oh where, is our modern-day Arthur? Maybe the British men need to embody him.). In order to solve this mystery, it will be important to watch which of her AI manifestations have enduring power. But I am not losing sleep over the matter: I am having too much fun just enjoying the whole spectacle!

There is one thing that I do note, however: there is some similarity between the emergence of Amelia into the public consciousness and an event which happened last summer, which was more than just a “flash in the pan” but ultimately died after a few weeks. It was the viral video of whom I call the “Brave Lassie of Dundee”: a short video taken in a suburban public park in Dundee, Scotland, by what is commonly referred to as a “groomer” who was in the process of trying to physically force a pre-teen local girl into submission. The victim’s older sister, who looks no more than 14 years old, protested very aggressively; and when the assailants continued their activities, the elder sister rushed home across the street and returned to the park brandishing a hatchet in one hand and a huge carving knife in the other hand, using very threatening language. It worked. Of course, the assailant posted the video: the brave girl was duly arrested and kept in remand for some time before it was made obvious that the assailants were criminals with a very sketchy past – at which time, the girl was released and she faded from public view. This spontaneous act of courage by a Scottish schoolgirl caught fire and generated a good number of memes and several songs over the course of a month or so… and then, she faded away as if enveloped in the legendary Scottish mist. (The sad point, of course, is that in what “civilized” society does a girl in her early teens need to arm herself to protect another child? Where in Scotland are all the men who should be preventing such a situation from rising in the first place???)

The connection I draw is tentative, but at this point I am looking at what I believe to be a repeating pattern. A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned my vision of Canada’s Sleeping Giant rising during the Freedom Convoy of early 2022, but I also mentioned an earlier event – the mass Maori “war hakka” conducted in New Zealand’s capital in November 2021 – and I drew a connection between the two, like a “call” and “response”. I see the same thing here: the war-cry of the Brave Lassie of Dundee and the “rising” of Amelia from the confines of an obscure government propaganda “game” aimed at youth as the “response.” I cannot prove my thesis – such things are devilishly difficult (if not impossible) to “prove” – but I am comfortable enough to put it out there. If I am correct, Amelia will continue to inspire and motivate a large number of people in England, and perhaps elsewhere, to beneficial ends.

When a society is under a great deal of anxiety and psychological strain, strange things happen. I believe that is one of the factors behind the rash of UFO “flaps” in the 1950s and 1960s in the USA and several European countries: it was a time of great fear and uncertainty as the prospect of nuclear war with the Soviet Union reached a fever pitch. Inexplicable stuff happens: sometimes weird, sometimes spooky, sometimes ghastly (such as the waves of witch trials which convulsed Europe and Britain in days long gone), and sometimes wonderful (as I believe events such as the Freedom Convoy and the Amelia phenomena to be). I take Amelia’s awakening and her ungovernable, unarrestable spirit to be a good omen.

So, even though I am not a fan of modern technologies, I accept that if the “enemy” adopts it, one must adapt and use it to better one’s advantage. In the case of the UK’s Department of Truth’s attempt to enforce passivity, fear and compliance in the nation’s youth via a video “game” and the “accidental” creation of the “evil” Amelia in that game, the world’s memesters came to the poker table and said, “I match you – and raise you a million.” Well done, lads! AI has created a million Amelias: long may they prosper!

Among the Anishnawbe people of the northern shore of Lake Superior (in Northwestern Ontario, Canada) there is a legend of the Sleeping Giant. This giant can be seen to this day lying down on his back at the end of the Sibley Peninsula, just to the east of the city of Thunder Bay. I have not visited this sacred place in person, but I flew over it once on a flight to western Canada on a clear day: I was astounded at how much it looked like a reclining giant even from thirty thousand feet in the air.

The legend has several variants, but in general it goes as follows:

Once there was a powerful and benevolent spirit named Nanabijou (sometimes also spelled ‘Nanabozho’) whose home was the depths of Lake Superior. Nanabijou loved and protected the Anishnawbe people of the Great Lakes region and throughout the ages he watched over them and helped them in their time of need. Then the Europeans came and set up trading posts: these newcomers looked for resources to be gleaned from the land. During this time, Nanabijou offered a gift to the Anishnawbe people – a gift that was not to be shared with the invading Europeans, nor should the Europeans learn about it. This gift was silver.

One day, Nanabijou called the Chief of the Anishnawbe people to the Thunder Temple atop the mountain. Nanabijou sternly warned the Chief that if he told the secret to the White Men, then he, Nanabijou, would be turned to stone and the Anishnawbe people would perish. The Chief gave his word. And Nanabijou told him the secret of the rich silver deposit at a place known as Silver Islet. Nanbijou told the Chief to go to the highest place on Thunder Cape (now called Sibley Peninsula) and there he would find a tunnel that would lead him to the centre of the silver deposit.

The Chief followed Nanabijou’s instructions and found Silver Islet. He and his people mined the silver and the Anishnawbe people became famous for their beautiful silver ornaments. So beautiful were these ornaments that the Sioux warriors (who had not yet migrated to the Great Plains) saw them on their wounded Anishnawbe adversaries and they tried to wrest the secret from them – but under no circumstances would the Anishnawbe prisoners of war give up the secret.

So, the Sioux had to find another way to find out the location of the Anishnawbe’s secret silver. Sioux warriors entered Anishnawbe camps and tortured and even killed the villagers in the hope of getting them to reveal the secret. These efforts, too, were in vain.

Realizing that direct force was of no use, the Sioux sent a scout to an Anishnawbe village, disguised as an Anishnawbe tribesman, and he listened for a long time about what was discussed among the villagers. Eventually, he learned the location of the secret silver mine.

Going to the mine at night, the Sioux scout picked up several large chunks of the metal in order to take them back to his Chief to prove that he had found the mine. However, on his way back to Sioux territory, he stopped at a White trading post to purchase some food. He had neither furs to trade nor cash on his person, so he used a piece of silver. The traders’ eyes gleamed at the sight of this piece of pure silver: they wanted to know where the Sioux warrior got the piece of silver so that they could go there and mine it themselves and become fabulously rich. The traders got him drunk and the Sioux man “spilled his guts” (so to speak) about the mine’s whereabouts.

Nanabijou was aware of what had happened. As soon as the Europeans knew where his gift was located, he sprang into action. Disappointed and angry, Nanabijou created a massive storm over Lake Superior at the same time that the White traders were paddling on the lake almost in sight of Silver Islet. Waves grew taller than hills; trees were ripped right out of the ground by the furious gusts of wind. The Europeans’ canoe filled with water; the swamped boat sank and the Europeans drowned. The Sioux scout paddled his own canoe aimlessly and in a crazed condition, for what was once an open bay was now  a gigantic hill in the shape of a sleeping man.

Nanabijou had laid down, arms crossed over his chest, and covered the silver mine under his feet, hidden from everyone. Nanabijou lays there, to this day, hiding his gift. The Anishnawbe people immediately knew what happened and offered thanks to Nanabijou for having allowed them to access the silver for a good while and for protecting its exploitation by others.

Here legend blends into history. It is a fact that on a little island at the foot of the Sleeping Giant can still be seen the partially submerged shafts of what was once the richest silver mine in northwestern Ontario. But the mine has never yielded its riches to the White Man. Company after company purchased the island throughout the 19^th century and tried to turn it into a viable mine with the extensive use of water pumps and all other available technologies. None of them ever succeeded: each venture ended in physical disaster and financial ruin. For nearly 150 years the old Anishnawbe silver mine has lain unmolested.

Decades ago, I had a close friend who spent a lot of time with the Anishnawbe people. He told me this story, but he told me something else which is not discussed publicly: some of the Elders say that the Sleeping Giant will rise again during a time of turbulence and change – at a time when the native peoples of the continent (Turtle Island) have put their traumatic past behind them and are able to openly celebrate their traditions again. For many years I hoped that I would live long enough to see such a day. Now, to be clear, I have not expected to literally see a three-mile-tall flesh-and-blood giant emerge from the Sibley Peninsula; but a vision, or a feeling, that some giant sleeping Spirit of the Land would make itself felt within my heart and within the hearts of others.

And then, in my mind’s eye, I saw the Sleeping Giant rise. As clear as day. It happened almost exactly four years ago (probably on January 29, 2022). And it was in connection with an unforgettable event (at least for Canadians): the Freedom Convoy.

During the Covid Era I had become more sensitized to what is happening within Canadian society. Being under virtual house arrest (working exclusively from home, banned from restaurants, movie theatres, trains and planes, and religious activities shut down) helped me participate in social media, which I had hitherto completely avoided. And, so, being more plugged into the dissident zeitgeist than previously, I quickly got wind of a trucker’s protest starting in British Columbia in reaction to the new federal government mandate that forced truckers (formerly lauded as ‘heroes’ during the early days of the national ‘lockdown’) who had not participated in the mRNA experiment to be quarantined every time they cross the border with the USA (a mandate that affected a large proportion of the trucking industry). And I watched videos and listened to reports assiduously. Soon it became clear that a major spontaneous movement was afoot. Canadians – not just truckers – were seriously pissed and had had enough of the government over-reach.

What struck me when the massive convoy made its way across the Prairies and into western Ontario was the very visible participation of Indigenous people, directly or indirectly, in the movement. Despite the bitter -30 degree cold, Indigenous groups performed the ‘smudging’ ceremony to trucks as they sped by on the highway; and many Indigenous individuals posted videos of special prayer-dances in the snow. One incident in particular drew my breath: a Métis family drove from rural Saskatchewan to western Ontario to deliver a sacred relic to Pat King – a popular and outrageously outspoken Youtuber who has some Anishnawbe ancestry – to take to the protest site in Ottawa to ‘carry on the fight’. This incident happened on the trans-Canada highway close to Thunder Bay – that is, in the traditional territory of the Sleeping Giant legend. And that is when it hit me: in my mind’s eye, I saw a human giant, standing two miles tall, looking to the east, standing beside the convoy-carrying highway. At that moment I knew a major cultural event in Canadian history was in the making: an event in which the Native Canadian values of freedom and independence would feature strongly.

For three weeks I closely watched all that I could on the Freedom Convoy as it made its way along the highway, thronged by cheering masses of people on overpasses, and established itself in Ottawa. I saw members of First Nations from coast to coast, as well as Métis from across the country, very active in the convoy. But not only that: I watched in amazement as protesters from the provinces of Alberta and Quebec – who under normal circumstances are enemies – forming close spontaneous friendships. Peoples of all ethnicities were present, too – and especially immigrants who had fled to Canada from authoritarian regimes (eastern Europe, Iran, China), many of whom stated that what they are experiencing in Canada “has the same smell” as the regimes that they fled and therefore vehemently oppose. After having been cooped up in their homes via what seemed to have been an interminable time by nonsensical mandates, Canadians of all walks of life and all imaginable backgrounds turned the main streets of Ottawa into a festival – a winter Woodstock, so to speak – where people celebrated the simple pleasure of mixing with each other without the encumbrances of face masks, Plexiglas screens and the like. Joy, openness and generosity flowed in a way I had never seen before (or since). And not even a single snowball was thrown in anger during the nearly three weeks in Ottawa, let alone burning cars, looting stores and other violent shenanigans that seem to accompany protests like smoke accompanies fire.

But the big question that I puzzled over was why the big presence of Indigenous people in the convoy and the Ottawa protest? What was at stake for them? Sure, protesting is almost a way of life for some native bands. I cannot count the number of times that highways and railroads have been blockaded by some irate band or another. There was even an armed standoff between Mohawk protesters and Canadian infantry in Oka (just outside Montreal) in 1990 that lasted for 78 days. But their protests have been strictly focused on their specific Indigenous concerns. I could not think of a single major non-Indigenous issue protest that garnered any visible Indigenous presence. So, what compelled our Indigenous brothers and sisters to show up this time, and in large numbers?

What I heard many Indigenous participants in the Freedom Convoy say, almost in one voice was startling: “For generations we have suffered under a heavy-handed government dictating nearly all aspect of our lives on the reservation; we do not wish that on anybody else. Now that you have had a taste of what that kind of life is, we fight beside you for you to regain your freedom.” In essence, they had nothing to gain personally from protesting; they had no ‘skin in the game.’ But even more common answers that I heard were, “as soon as I found out about the convoy, something inside of me strongly said, ‘go and join them’ and before I knew what I was doing I hopped in my car and came here” and “the village elder said to us ‘go – even though we don’t like to involve ourselves with outsiders’ concerns, the spirits are saying that this time it is different – we must participate.’”

And they came in the thousands. Many slept in their cars in frigid temperatures for weeks, having neither the comfort of a truck cabin nor a hotel to stay in. And they prayed long and hard, singing and playing their drums in front of Canada’s parliament buildings.

The presence of Indigenous people at the convoy/protest accomplished several important things: it enabled contacts to be made with many non-Indigenous Canadians, and it helped to expose these Canadians to Indigenous spiritual and cultural beliefs, which they spoke of freely (for a change). This formed bonds across cultural and religious barriers that have persisted to this day.

In the end, the Government of Canada prevailed – at least at the physical level. It invoked the Emergencies Act (formerly called the War Measures Act) – illegally, as it has been proven in two courts – which allowed the amassing of the worst cops in Canada (and some from the USA and UK) to brutalize the mass of unarmed, peaceful protesters, and break into and impound many trucks on February 19, 2022. Many organizers were arrested and held without bail; others retreated to the outskirts of Ottawa in the hope of being able to continue the peaceful protest – but it was not meant to be. The wonderful “spell” of peace, harmony, and joy at just being able to assemble without hindrance was effectively broken by hobnail boots following orders of masters who were terrified of a persistent street party.

But did the Government of Canada ultimately prevail? I am not alone in strongly answering “no” to that question. Even while the Freedom Convoy was thundering across the nation, the governments of one province after another were dropping their restrictive “medical” mandates as quickly as if they were hot potatoes, and within a couple of months after the Freedom Convoy had been beaten into submission in the bloody snow, the Government of Canada quietly dropped the last of its draconian mandates.

More importantly, life did not go back to “normal” for many of the participants and supporters of the Freedom Convoy. Organizations spontaneously formed to fight medical tyranny and government over-reach – many of which are thriving today. And quietly, almost surreptitiously, some Indigenous spiritual leaders have worked tirelessly on dismantling the system that nearly strangled the life out of Canada during the Covid Era. But their work is not on the outer level; rather, it is at very deep spiritual and symbolic levels – undoing and unravelling key elements of what they are convinced is the black magic that has contaminated Canadian politics and society at large. They shun the limelight, for their work does not need publicity; it works in its own way and in its own time, as magic always does.

In my inner eye, I still see what I refer to as the Standing Giant (formerly “Sleeping Giant”) protecting this country, not just the Anishnawbe inhabitants of a particular region. I cannot say with certainty exactly what the Standing Giant has planned for the future, but I do know that he marks a major turn that will ultimately be for the better. I see the Standing Giant as the embodiment of the deep fundamental culture of this land: a culture that is in harmony with the land and actually comes from the land. I believe that it is, literally, the Spirit of the Land (Canada? North America? I am not sure). I know what I see, but I don’t claim to fully understand the meaning of what I see.

Oddly enough, while I give enormous importance to the spontaneous Freedom Convoy as a bonfire that dispelled the dystopian darkness of the Covid Era, I believe that there was an earlier spark that (at a subtle level) ignited the fire. Far away, on the other side of the world, in a place called Aotearoa (New Zealand) in late November of 2021, there manifested the first (to my knowledge) opposition to the totalitarian terror that was the Covid mandates. In the capital city of Wellington, facing the nation’s parliament buildings, an immense crowd of Maoris assembled and performed in unison, the hakka “war dance” (which I believe is actually an effective magic ritual). I have seen many hakkas performed (including one, in person, in New Zealand): it is extremely powerful at an instinctual level (like a bear warning you before it attacks). As soon as I saw a recording of this “mass hakka” in late 2021, I felt that it was sending out a signal that would reverberate around the world – and that other Indigenous peoples would be most sensitive and attentive to the signal. Now with hindsight I see the “mass hakka” as being the call; and the Freedom Convoy (and the many other convoys that spanned several contents) was the reply. I consider it to be perfectly natural that one of the key originators of the Freedom Convoy – Tamara Lich – is Metis and that the Native Canadian presence in the convoy was so conspicuous.

Perhaps it is pure coincidence (whatever that is) that in early 2021 I wrote a short story (published in Mythic magazine), which came to me in a flash of intuition, about an ancient conch shell being blown for the first time in recorded history, and that it awoke two giants (named “Hard Limits” and “Wisdom”) who had slumbered on the bottom of the ocean for aeons, in order to restore “balance” in the West. Coincidence or not, I do believe that the Sleeping Giant has risen, and that can only be a good thing.

Cultural anthropologists have spent a couple of centuries studying peoples all over the world. In doing so, they have discovered, and described, an amazing variety of beliefs, norms, and customs within our species. But they have also discovered a small number of common elements that seem to be universal across space and time within the human race – and one of those is belief in ghosts or whatever one terms the spirits of the deceased. The main exception seems to be modern Western society; even so, as much as one-third of people living in this society of supposedly rational non-believers in the supernatural report having at least one ghostly encounter in their lives.

I consider myself lucky that I grew up in a family that accepted ghosts as matter-of-fact and in an old historical town that was absolutely chock-a-block with haunted buildings: domiciles, businesses, churches, rectories – you name it, it was haunted! Whole books have been written about the ghosts of my hometown: I may share some of them in the future if the spirit moves me to do so.

When I was in Grade 5, there was a program that encouraged students to purchase books at a very affordable price. There was a wide variety of genres and titles available in the catalogue. And what did I purchase? Why, books of true Canadian ghost stories, of course! I could never get enough. True ghost stories never scared me; rather, they fascinated me. And I hoped that perhaps, one day, I would have a ghostly experience. What’s the saying about being careful of what you wish for?

During part of my college years, I rented a room in a quaint bungalow located in a quiet suburban neighbourhood. Well, at least it appeared to be quiet! The landlady lived on the main floor and rented out one bedroom on the main floor and the basement. She was a pleasant, well-read person and a good conversationalist. Soon after I moved in, we started talking about ghosts and she told me about some of the really old houses in the neighbourhood which were notoriously haunted. She also laughingly told me that the basement tenant swore that her house was haunted – she totally dismissed his claim. Maybe she should not have been so dismissive…

At the time that I moved in I worked night shifts as a security guard for a trucking company. Most nights I would get home around 1:00 or 2:00 am. Then I would crash until I had to get up in the morning for classes. What I really wanted was a few hours of undisturbed sleep. But soon after moving in, I found that getting to sleep was a major issue.

It was mid-winter: one of those winters that had a foot or more of snow on the ground. My bedroom was in the back of the house and had an exceptionally large window that looked onto the snow-filled backyard. Soon after I moved in, noticed a strange pattern: shortly after coming home from my work shift, I would go to bed and almost like clockwork at around 1:30 am, I would hear a “crunching” sound in the backyard: the kind of sound that is made when a person is walking through deep snow that has either freezing rain mixed in or has partially melted so that major crystallization has occurred. The sound would start in the side yard and would make its way through the backyard. What on Earth is somebody doing walking around in a suburban backyard at that hour? Is some teenager trying to sneak home in the wee hours using this backyard as a short cut?

After hearing these “crunchy” footsteps a couple of nights in a row, I mentioned it to my landlady. She was stumped and suggested that it might be mice nibbling on wires in the basement. The next night that the sound came, I listened carefully to the wall and debunked her explanation. Next, I inspected the snow-covered side yard and backyard and found only faint impressions of footprints that had been covered over  with many inches of snow. But the pattern kept on repeating. It became a bit of an obsession for me: after coming home from work, I would sit next to the side door waiting to “catch” the trespasser, but I never saw any such person.

As the pattern continued, I listened more closely to the sound of the footsteps. More often than not, the crunching would come right up to the patio that was just outside my window and stop – and that would be the end of the night’s ruckus. I would even part the curtains in my room and look to the patio when I could hear the steps – but nobody and nothing out of the ordinary was visible in the mid-night gloom. It was only after exhausting all rational explanations for the crunchy footsteps that I accepted that the source was supernatural.

About a month after I accepted this supernatural explanation, the situation escalated. One night I was in my bed: it seemed like a dream in which I looked at the big window from where I was sleeping and I saw a human-like form on the patio looking at me -- and then the being’s head passed straight through the window (without breaking it) and extended on a giraffe-like neck right to my face. (No alcohol, drugs or any kind of psychedelics were involved, as I have eschewed them right from my early teens) Like in a typical “hag” visitation, I was unable to move but was able to shout in surprise – but it did not sound like my own voice. And then the experience immediately ended.

Not too long after that I got “hagged.” (For those who are not familiar with the term, it is the fairly common, nay universal, phenomenon of violently waking up with a feeling of a malevolent entity sitting or pressing on one’s chest, making it exceedingly difficult to breathe, combined with bodily paralysis and an intense feeling of ill-will from the entity. The night hag is explained away with the term “sleep paralysis” by rationalists; an explanation that I totally reject.) What I experienced was a “classic” version of the experience described above. The feeling on my chest and the malevolent will of the “being” were intense, but I was able to combat it with prayers for protection and then had the presence of mind to mentally imagine myself pummeling my invisible assailant.

The following morning, I told my landlady about my disturbing experience. Then she told me that her father was not a nice man: he was very possessive and territorial – and he had died in my bed some years ago. We never discussed the matter again.

Interestingly, after that “hagging” incident, the crunchy footsteps in the backyard stopped. Completely.  Along with all other supernatural disturbances.

At the time that I was living in the haunted bungalow, I did not know of any practical methods for making a ghost unwelcome or unable to manifest. But as soon as I learned the likely identity of my supernatural assailant, I spoke to him explaining who I was, why I was occupying the room, that I meant no harm or disrespect to anyone, but that I was determined to stay. I’m not sure if such communication helped the situation or not, but I was relieved that nothing spooky ever happened in my room again.

That was neither my first ghostly experience nor my last. But looking outside my snowy backyard today I was reminded of my experience with the “crunchy ghost” nearly 40 years ago.

Lots of ink has been spilled by plenty of writers, philosophers, researcher, theologians and the like about ghosts and what they “really” are. And over the decades I have read a fair bit about it. But I also need to “ground truth” these explanations with my own experience. And what I can say is that much of the ghostly phenomena can be attributed to a loved one who has recently passed on – crossed the veil so to speak – and who wants to communicate something that they consider to be important, even if it is simply, “don’t worry, I’m OK.” A great deal of other ghostly phenomena seem to be mindless repetition of an event or situation: the ghost does not interact with the observer, or may not even seem to be aware of the observer, and performs the particular activity as if it were a glitch in time (some people call this the “stone tape” theory). Then there are the minority of ghostly experiences where the spirit interacts or communicates with the witness but is not a relative: these are the creepier experiences and my “crunchy ghost” story fits well within that pattern.

So, yes, I have a lifelong fascination with ghosts. And I like a good ghost story – especially if it is a true one. But I’d rather not be bothered by one. I do not consider cohabiting with the spirits of the dead to be particularly “healthy” (they can mess with one’s dreams pretty badly, which then affects one’s behaviour and, if carried on for too long, warp one’s character). Spooks, to me, are like vermin: if they don’t bother me, I won’t bother them – but if I notice their presence, it is time to get expelled or take the next step in the afterlife. No hard feelings: it’s just my house isn’t big enough for the two of us!

For a change, I was indecisive for a while regarding what topic to write about as the year closes out; it was an issue of too many issues bouncing around in my mind rather than none at all. And then I came across an unexpected news headline regarding Canadian jazz singer Michael Bublé performing a live Christmas concert at the Vatican in early December. I took that as a ‘cue’ and so I am running with it!

It’s funny that when I was growing up, I – along with my friends – steadfastly refused to appreciate or acknowledge the great jazz singers of our time (Frank Sanatra, etc.) because it was “our parents’ music” and therefore “hopelessly old-fashioned”. What opinionated fools we were! But about 15 years ago, my wife and I heard Michael Bublé singing in the style of the “rat pack” and we were very impressed with his talent. We became Bublé fans on the spot. And, so, we have continued to listen to him and follow his career (from the comfort of our home). So, when I read that this nearly permanent “fixture” of Las Vegas was invited by the Holy See to sing Christmas songs, that caught my attention. And the more I read the news article about the Christmas concert, the more fascinated I became. The annual event (initiated in 2015 by Pope Francis) is a free concert of top musicians for Rome’s poor. And then came the lightning bolt: on the eve of the December 6 Christmas concert, the Pope told Bublé and the other artists, "I would like us, as we participate in this gathering, to recall the Lord's words: Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me." These were precisely the final words in the Leo Tolstoy story Where Love Is, God Is, which I shared last week. So, here we go!

The are many great mysteries in this world – and for that I am very grateful. What a dull world we would live in if we had figured out everything! But among these mysteries, music – at least for me – is one of the most enduring. All the more so that it has been an important part of my life since early childhood. Some of my earliest memories are of me singing silly little songs to my parents’ friends whenever they gathered: I must have been three or four years old at the time. Musical talent runs strongly on both sides of my family, so no big surprise that grew up singing. During those difficult and awkward years of high school, music was the unshakable central pillar of my identity: all my friends were highly musical, I took every music course available, was involved in every band I could within school and outside, and even ate my lunch every single day in the school’s music room for five years – for, outside that refuge of order and beauty (mixed in with raging teenage hormones, of course) was a sterile, ugly, uninteresting social world that I interacted with only as much as was absolutely necessary! Many teenagers have found that, one way or another, music has kept them sane enough to navigate the chaos that is adolescence – and I was one of them.

What fascinated me, even at that early age, was how music could so immediately capture a mood or feeling and communicate it so directly to the listeners as well as participants. Other arts, of course, accomplish that emotional communication; but they tend to do so more at the individual level – be it reading or observing a piece of visual art. Of course, there are exceptions such as public art and the now nearly extinct practice of public recitations of poetry, but even so, qualitatively, there is a difference. Music reaches into the mind and memory in a unique way: we can effortlessly memorize a song with hundreds of words after just a few listenings, but to memorize the lyrics without music usually takes many times the amount of effort. Just a three-note melody is enough to enable Muslim students to memorize the entire Koran within the space of a year, or for Hindu Brahmins to memorize entire Vedas. From my own personal experience, I have quickly learned to memorize lengthy songs in languages that I have no knowledge of – and I don’t have any particular talent in learning languages!

The more one looks into music the weirder it gets. So far in my life I have met only one person who claims to not like music (that individual happened to be super-hyper-rationalistic to a degree that I have rarely encountered). To my knowledge, no other species of primate has an innate sense of musical creativity. So far, I have not encountered a convincing theory as to why, from an evolutionary perspective, humans developed this innate musicality. What is the tie between a sequence of sounds and the emotions that they invoke? Music seems to be so hard-wired into our very being that perhaps a more appropriate name for our species is Homo musicalis (Homo sapiens certainly seems to be inappropriate – especially these days!).

It is certainly not a stretch to call music “magical” (if one uses the definition of magic to be “the art and science of making changes in consciousness in accordance with will” as per Dion Fortune). For example, manual labour can be excruciating – but when set to music, the burden is much lighter, the effort is less and time passes by more quickly! The power of music to evoke specific emotions at the individual and mass levels is so self-evident that institutions – be they religious, political, social, or business – have used music for their own purposes since the dawn of history, if not before. However, music being what it is, monolithic control of it is virtually impossible and, therefore, there has always been folk music and counter-culture music (whether recognized as such or not) to reflect the on-the-ground perspectives and aspirations of the commoners, the oppressed and the slaves.

And from the “lemons” of the sufferings of the downtrodden, what exquisite musical “lemonade” has been produced! If one were to produce a visual representation (sketch, painting, or sculpture) of a really hard-hitting blues song, I doubt that one could see much or any beauty in it; yet when the lyrics of pain are set to a soulful tune, it is somehow beautiful – sometimes bewitchingly so! How can this be?

For more than a decade of my life, I restricted myself to listening to, and singing, only sacred music. And not just the Christian music of my ancestral roots, but of various cultures and religions. Be it traditional church hymns and Gregorian chants, the songs of the drum circles at indigenous pow-wows, the Sufi Qawwali, or the Hindu bhajan and Indian classical music – I reveled in it all! And what I discovered was that despite the extreme differences in languages and in styles of expression, I found a deeper “hidden” language of the heart: the yearning of the river to merge with the sea, so to speak. This is the essential mystical element behind sacred music that I found.

But what of the “secular” music? Is it just a distraction to a mystic? For a long time I certainly thought so; but then I made friends with a fellow who was very deep in his devotion and who sang a lot of bhajans. One day I heard him singing a song in a very heart-felt way – but I recognized it as a Hindi film song! So, I asked him what on Earth possessed him to casually sing such a secular, sappy, ooey-gooey, lovey-dovey film song. And he said to me very plainly: “to me my only beloved is the Divine; and so, if I hear a song that I like and if the theme of the song is love, I sing it to the Divine!” His response was like a slap to my face, breaking the barrier that I had created separating “sacred” love from “secular” love and it dawned on me how secular love can be seen as a reflection or metaphor of sacred love. After that I started my search for this parallel and gradually I began to listen again to music that I had long ago rejected.

To be honest, it has not always been easy for me to find sacred love in the profane modern music scene (many verbs can be used to describe it, but “chaste” definitely isn’t one of them!). More often than not, I have failed to make them “fit” into a concept of Divine love. But still, the occasional song makes it very easy. The one that most often comes to my mind is the song Together Again by Janet Jackson. It is actually the only Janet Jackson song that I know or would recognize. It was played so much on the radio for years that I ended up paying attention to it and was able to pick out the initial lines and the chorus:

There are times when I look above and beyond
There are times when I feel your love around me, baby
I'll never forget my baby…

Everywhere I go, every smile I see
I know you are there smilin' back at me
Dancin' in moonlight, I know you are free
'Cause I can see your star shinin' down on me

Given my natural bent-of-mind (some might say “bent-out-of-shape” mind!) I had always thought that she was singing directly to God. Perhaps addressing God as “my baby” is unusual, but I didn’t knock it: one can have many different kinds of relationships with the Divine, so why not such an endearing one? I just recently found out that Together Again was actually composed in memory of a friend of Janet’s who had died of AIDS, which makes me respect the song even more because of its buoyant mood and the expansive lyrics. The song is mystical in its own special way. Besides, I’m a sucker for songs with descending bass lines, so she had me from the start regardless of the intent of the song.

After a while, I ended up seriously questioning myself about what I thought “sacred” music was. Ultimately, I concluded that music is inherently sacred. It is a Divine gift – one of many. In quite a few traditional cultures, music was considered as such. The ancient Greeks apparently started out worshipping three muses on Mount Helicon, of which Aoide ('song' or 'tune') was one. They were the daughters of Zeus, king of the gods, and Mnemosyne, Titan goddess of memory. Three Muses were worshipped in Delphi, but their names were different and were assigned as the names of the three chords (Nete, Mese, Hypate) of the lyre. In the peak of Classical Greece, there were a total of nine muses, several of whom had musical connotations: Polyhymnia (hymns), Euterpe (flute), and Erato (lyric choral poetry). In Hinduism it is believed that the manifest universe is based on sound and that the seven notes of the scale are descended from the primordial sound of creation – and that each musical raga (roughly equivalent to a musical scale) is a goddess.

I have long believed that music can be the “royal road” to feeling the proximity of the Divine; but now I try to see it as being a part of Divinity itself. At times when I am easily transported to transcendent heights by the music I am listening to, it is easy to believe this; in situations where music is being used to manipulate people into base thoughts or encourage actions that are not necessarily to their benefit, it is hard to see the Divine within such black magic. And, for the life of me, I cannot appreciate, let alone see Divinity in, traditional Tibetan monastery music -- with the monotonous droning of the monks, the flittering oboes, the occasional blaring horn and the crashing cymbals: it just sounds like chaos and cacophony to me. Maybe that is the intent; I don’t really know. Either way, this seeing Divinity in all music thing is still definitely a work in progress for me. But without music itself, I’m not sure if I’d even be sane by now.

Wishing all a blessed 2026!

I consider myself fortunate to have spent much of my childhood in the 1970s for a whole lot of reasons: music, film, fashion, environmental awareness/nature conservation, and culture in general. A time when the interiors of houses were colourful and parking lots had cars of nearly every imaginable colour and hue (though I admit, I recall seeing only one deep purple car during the whole decade) until gradually, decade by decade they faded away and have been replaced by the current Monochromatic Twenties. More importantly, to me, it was also a great decade for those who were fans of literature about weird stuff: UFOs, bigfoot, ghosts, the Bermuda Triangle – you name it – available aplenty in any bookstore you walked into. And I walked into a lot of bookstores during that decade with one or more titles tucked under my arm. Why waste one’s allowance and meagre odd job earnings on chocolates or chips when one could spend it on a good record or good book that will raise the hair on the back of your neck?

I guess I was lucky, too, that my house had a well-stocked private library with quite a few titles of the “weird” variety which my dad encouraged me to dive into at an early age. Living in an old town that had loads of haunted houses as well as the occasional sighting of UFOs and mysterious big black cats on the outskirts certainly helped to stoke the fires of my oddball interest!

During the first few years of my hobby of reading about the unexplained, I assimilated everything hook, line and sinker. Including bizarre stories published in The National Enquirer which we’d pick up in the supermarket checkout line. But then I started to ask myself questions, especially regarding UFOs: How were so many different objects described? How could the descriptions of the “occupants” of these crafts vary so widely? Were we being visited by the inhabitants of dozens of different worlds? And how would it be possible for them to cover such vast distances of space? (This was during the time of the launch of Voyager spacecraft and NASA’s Viking Mars missions, which I avidly followed.) It simply did not make sense! And so, by the time I was in my early teens, I dismissed interstellar travel as impossible and with the not-so-subtle logic of the teenage male mind, I simply blocked all UFO stuff out of my mind in pursuit of other things. Gradually, my interest in bigfoot, ghosts, and the rest also subsided, though I never explained them away. I just abandoned them like I had abandoned my toy cars and plastic model planes some years earlier.

But I never abandoned my interest in the weird and the inexplicable. During my university years, I discovered the writings of Charles Fort and several other authors along the same line. I also had personal encounters with weird stuff – ghosts, UFOs, and not-so-nice entities. But I took it all in stride and put it on the intellectual backburner, telling myself that this stuff happens, whatever it is, but it does not deserve much time or attention.

That all changed in 2002 with the release of the film The Mothman Prophecies. I was familiar with the book of the same title (by John A. Keel) but had never found it in bookstores, though I had really wanted to read it back in the ‘70s.

A few years earlier I had heard the name Jacque Vallee and his theory that the UFO phenomenon and the faery phenomenon had a common cause or were even the same thing. I quickly devoured Vallee’s books, and then Keel’s books and then other books such as Patrick Harpur’s Daimonic Reality and Evans-Wentz’s The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. Enter the rabbit hole…

In his initial book, Passport to Magonia, Jacque Vallee described, in great detail, the parallels between modern accounts of experiences with UFOs and medieval accounts of faeries – especially those who were seen in aircraft. Vallee had an impressive pedigree, having himself seeing “impossible” objects through the telescope – objects that were in a retrograde orbit around the Earth (that is, a orbiting the earth in the opposite direction to the earth's rotation) while working for NASA in 1961 -- a time at which such a feat could not be accomplished by artificial satellites – and having conducted research at hundreds of sites where UFO encounters were claimed. In later books, Vallee observed that the behaviour of the ufonauts to some degree paralleled the behaviour of the society that encounters it: for example, most accounts of humans being killed by encounters with UFOs come from Brazil – a country which has a much higher violent crime rate than in the USA or Europe. Eventually, Vallee stopped researching the phenomenon and got involved in a much more “earthly” pursuit of tech investing. Interesting…

The theme of UFO-faery connection was well picked up by Patrick Harpur in Daimonic Reality. Like Vallee, he noted that descriptions of modern encounters with UFOs and their inhabitants closely match descriptions in previous centuries of faeries and related phenomena. Parallels include anomalous lights at night; witnesses encountering a strange dream-like atmosphere at the time of a sighting; incidents of time standing still or missing time; beings of various descriptions and sizes from the giant to the miniscule; superiority to humans – the fairies are more intelligent and cunning than us, while the ufonauts are technologically superior to us. Likewise, an experience with either faeries or ufonauts can be beneficial (including healings), horrific (including abduction) or indifferent (a brief sighting but with no interaction per se). Harpur also notes strange “opposites” between fairies and ufonauts: the former tend to be dressed in antiquated clothing and always say that they are leaving (but never seem to totally leave); while the latter tend to be dressed in futuristic/space-type clothing and always say that they are coming to Earth (but never seem to totally arrive). In Daimonic Reality, Harpur also ventures into the phenomenon of unexplained beasts, monsters and bigfoot: he notes that quite often they, too, share qualities with the faeries and UFOs such as suddenly appearing and disappearing. Ultimately, Harpur suggests that all these phenomena can be simply lumped into the category of “apparitions”, explaining that:

We cannot investigate [phantom] dogs without [phantom] cats; cats without fairies; fairies without Bigfoot and lake monsters; any of these without UFOs and aliens. The investigation always broadens to embrace, in the end, all apparitions, as if there were a single principle at work capable of manifesting itself in a myriad forms.

Not simply being content to investigate the strange phenomena in myriad forms that have been experienced worldwide since time immemorial, Harpur turns his investigation around at the observers and reporters of such phenomena. He notes similarities between the stories of UFO abductions with the descriptions of the shaman’s journey and posits that quite possibly what people in non-tribal societies are experiencing is shamanic initiation. However, since cultures such as ours lack a shamanic tradition, our “psychics” have no framework to shape and channel their innate abilities and therefore remain undeveloped – that is, they tend not to become healers or prophets. “Contactees” cannot make sense of their experience on their own and have no tutor to guide them in integrating their encounters with the “other world” into their lives.

Harpur’s work led me to Evans-Wentz and his book The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries. Evans-Wentz was fortunate to have conducted his field research in rural Britain during the early decades of the 20^th century – a time when many of the “old timers” were still alive to tell of their own experiences, or experiences of their parents’ generation, with faeries – a phenomenon that became much more rare in the 20^th century as UFOs became more prevalent. The accounts he recorded were astonishing – but what really took me for a loop were the accounts given by the Celtic people of Brittany, as their faery stories were closely associated with the spirits of the dead. Faeries being related to ghosts or one and the same thing? That really took me for a loop!

John A. Keel is one of my favourite writers on the topic of weird stuff because of his single-minded pursuit of the phenomena, old-style investigative reporter style, combined with a hard-headed rationalist-materialist perspective – that is, until he realized, in Dorothy’s words, he was “not in Kansas anymore” and had to radically change his perspective on what constitutes “reality”. As described in Operation Trojan Horse, Keel discovered that he was not only the “hunter”; he was also the “hunted” (so to speak) as well as being toyed with by something that was far beyond his comprehension:

Within a year after I had launched my full-time UFO investigating effort in 1966, the phenomenon had zeroed in on me, just as it had done with the British newspaper editor Arthur Shuttlewood and so many others. My telephone ran amok first, with mysterious strangers calling day and night to deliver bizarre messages "from the space people." Then I was catapulted into the dreamlike fantasy world of demonology. I kept rendezvous with black Cadillacs on Long Island, and when I tried to pursue them, they would disappear impossibly on dead-end roads. Throughout 1967, I was called out in the middle of the night to go on silly wild-goose chases and try to affect "rescues" of troubled contactees. Luminous aerial objects seemed to follow me around like faithful dogs. The objects seemed to know where I was going and where I had been. I would check into a motel chosen at random only to find that someone had made a reservation in my name and had even left a string of nonsensical telephone messages for me. I was plagued by impossible coincidences, and some of my closest friends in New York, none of whom was conversant with the phenomenon, began to report strange experiences of their own -- poltergeists erupted in their apartments, ugly smells of hydrogen sulfide haunted them. One girl of my acquaintance suffered an inexplicable two-hour mental blackout while she was sitting under a hair dryer alone in her own apartment. More than once I woke up in the middle of the night to find myself unable to move, with a huge dark apparition standing over me.

For a time I questioned my own sanity. I kept profusive notes-a daily journal which now reads like something from the pen of Edgar Allen Poe or HP Lovecraft.

Previous to all this I was a typical hard-boiled skeptic. I sneered at the occult. I had once published a book, “Jadoo”, which denigrated the mystical legends of the Orient. I tried to adopt a very scientific approach to ufology, and this meant that I scoffed at the many contactee reports. But as my experiences mounted and investigations broadened, I rapidly changed my views.

Keel related how he ended up spending months searching for nonexistent UFO bases and trying to protect witnesses from the “men in black” and how he was plagued by poltergeist manifestations wherever he went. At times he found it difficult to determine if the situations he was experiencing were somehow being unwittingly created by himself or whether they were independent of his mind.

In the same book, Keel describes a series of “prophecies” that he received either directly, or via persons he was in contact with, during much of 1967. A big power failure was predicted in May; it manifested in four states on June 5. In May the UFO entities declared that Pope Paul would visit Turkey in the coming months and would be bloodily assassinated (weeks later the Vatican announced the Pope’s plan to visit Turkey in July -- he did go, but there was no assassination attempt). Several plane crashes predicted in June occurred in July. In October, he was told that "the Hopi and Navajo Indians will make headlines shortly before Christmas"; early in December a blizzard struck the Indian reservations in the Four Corners area of the Southwest, necessitating rescue efforts to rush them supplies and medicine. In late October a being who was allegedly a UFO entity warned Keel that there would soon be a major disaster on the Ohio River and that many people would drown and that when President Johnson turns on the lights on the White House Christmas tree in December, a huge blackout would take place; on December 15, President Johnson held the Christmas tree lighting ceremony at the White House, but instead of a power cut, mere moments after the ceremony was held, newscasters announced that the Silver Bridge between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Pleasant Point, West Virginia has just collapsed, heavily laden with rush-hour traffic (an event that had been foreseen by several Pleasant Point residents known to Keel a few weeks previously). On December 11, a mysterious caller informed Keel that there would be an airplane disaster in Tucson, Arizona; the next day, an Air Force jet crashed into a shopping center in Tucson.

Keel writes that:

What astonished me most was that these predictions were coming in from a wide variety of sources. Trance mediums and automatic writers in touch with the spirit world were corning up with the same things as the UFO contactees. Often the prophecies were phrased identically in different sections of the country. Even when they failed to come off, we still could not overlook this peculiar set of correlative factors.

But not everything that was predicted happened. The big “cosmic hoax” was a prediction relayed to Keel of a nation-wide three-day blackout that would happen after the Pope’s visit to Turkey. Having seen several predictions come true to the letter earlier in the month, Keel packed up his equipment, rented a car, and drove out to the UFO flap area near Melville, Long Island in expectation. Keel writes:

Just before I left Manhattan, I stopped in a local delicatessen and bought three quarts of distilled water. I figured that a three-day power failure would certainly be accompanied by a water shortage. On my way out to Long Island I stopped in on a silent contactee, and he told me he had received a brief visit from a UFO entity a short time before. This entity had mentioned me, he said, and had given him a message to relay to me. The message didn't make sense to the contactee. It was, "Tell John we'll meet with him and help him drink all that water." (The water was in the trunk of the car, and the contactee had no way of knowing I had it.)

In retrospect, Keel saw that through his experience of UFO-chasing in 1966-1967, the “phenomenon” was slowly leading him from skepticism to belief to -- incredibly -- disbelief. He was fortunate in this respect, as other people who have become involved in this phenomenon settled upon and accepted a single frame of reference (absolute faith in the information they were receiving from the “space people”) and were quickly engulfed in disaster. It is interesting to note that John Keel ended up backing away from the whole “UFO thing” shortly afterwards and never returned to it as an investigative reporter. When later questioned about what he really believed about the phenomenon, Keel was pretty tight-lipped but would curtly state that it was well described by the Neoplatonist Iamblicus and that demonology provides a strong clue. Keel had stared into the abyss, and, to his surprise, the abyss had stared back at him – and then it nearly drove him insane. It seems that Keel got burnt very badly from this experience and he strongly warned people – especially children and youth – against delving into occult investigations. This comment may seem odd, as Keel was a confessed atheist; it seems that he may not believe in God, but he certainly believed in disembodied intelligences (which he termed “ultraterrestrials”) and that they were up to no good with us humans.

After digesting these books, I said to myself, “wait a minute… if UFOs are connected to poltergeist phenomena, and fairies, and monsters, and the spirits of the dead, I need a philosophical upgrade!” Soon afterwards, I became aware of a book by John Michael Greer simply titled Monsters. Already knowing Greer’s pedigree and accomplishments as an occult author, I bought the book and read it thoroughly. And I am glad that I did. According to Greer, Western occult philosophy posits that “reality” consists of multiple planes: the physical (the regular world that we encounter with our senses), the etheric (or life force), the astral (ordinary mental activity, dreams, and imagination), the mental (abstract consciousness) and the spiritual (the soul or transcendent core of the self). Things that humans experience that cannot be validated on the physical plane (that, is weird things) belong to one of the other planes. Ghosts, faeries, chimeras, traditional vampires, and shape shifters/werewolves belong to the etheric plane; non-human spirits and demons belong to the astral plane; high spirits/intelligences belong to the mental plane; and angels belong to the spiritual plane. Importantly, it is not as though these planes are hermetically sealed off from one another; contact along the planes sometimes happens and those who are sensitive to these other planes (either by natural talent or training) can perceive them. This information was systematic, well explained, and helpful to me.

Another model that discusses weird things and that I found helpful is the Great Chain of Being: the medieval Christian “map” of all things created, seen and unseen, which is well described in CS Lewis’s The Discarded Image. God is at the top of the chain, minerals at the bottom of the chain, and humanity is exactly in the middle. It is in the Great Chain of Being that the nine ranks of angels are described. But the unseen portion of creation contains much more than just angels. The same is true in some other faiths: in Hinduism, for example, there are numerous categories of invisible beings (devas, gandharvas, nagas, kinnaras, yakshas) that sometimes interact with humans and there are 14 “worlds” (what occultists would call “planes”) in existence, with humans living in the eighth “world.” Though the terminology is different from the occult description provided by Greer, the gist is similar: multiple planes of existence, only a few parts of which (the links close to humans) can be ordinarily perceived by us. Regardless of the model one prefers, the result is the same: a kind of humbling about how little we really know about the “worlds” that are all around us all the time. How apt the words of Shakespeare through the voice of Hamlet: There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

In this day and age, in a culture that affirms that only one “plane” exists (the physical), a person like me who believes in all of this “weird stuff” is easily labelled as “gullible” or “odd” (or worse). That’s why I am cautious regarding whom I talk to about these things. Talking about ghost stories is a safe starting point; and then I test the boundaries after that. But I must be honest with myself: I have experienced quite a bit of “weird stuff” throughout my life: some has been beneficial, some has been harmful, and some has been entirely indifferent to me. I have not sought it out, though I have always been curious.

As a mystic, I do not dwell too much on these things, as there are more sublime things to contemplate. Nevertheless, I acknowledge their existence within a “live and let live” attitude. Everything in this universe has a purpose and a place to exist. Yes, I am mildly curious – but I take Keel’s warnings to heart. Some things are best left alone. I think I’ll just let sleeping monsters lie and tiptoe past them. Nevertheless, in the future I may flesh out my perspectives and/or experiences with some of these specific denizens of the “weird.”

This week’s post is a continuation of last week’s post Black Elk and the Way of the Shaman.

Black Elk Speaks was not written by Black Elk himself. It was primarily dictated by Black Elk in Lakota and interpreted into English by his son Ben. Hilda and Enid Neihardt – John Neihardt’s daughters – took notation and John Neihardt listened and asked the occasional question. Black Elk was accompanied by some of his older friends who were able to attest to Black Elk’s stories and provided context and details on events that happened when Black Elk was a young boy. The stories were narrated out in the open in the grasslands of Pine Ridge reservation in May 1931. Afterwards, John Neihardt reviewed his daughters’ notes as well as his recollection, and wrote the book.

Naturally, the question arises to what degree Black Elk Speaks reflects the Lakota shaman’s words and how much is a literary product of Neihardt, who was by the early 1930s a reasonably well-known “man of letters” (poet and author of short stories, novels, and journalist) whose focus was on the history and grandeur of the Great Plains. In fact, when he initially got in contact with Black Elk in August 1930 Neihardt was working on his poem The Song of the Messiah, the final poem in his epic work Cycle of the West (which he laboured over for 29 years). Neihardt was merely wanting to interview a native elder who had first-hand experience with the Ghost Dance phenomenon in 1889-1890 in order to give authenticity to his poem. Neihardt himself never claimed that Black Elk Speaks was a verbatim retelling of Black Elk’s narration; hence the subtitle of the book was “as told through John G. Neihardt.” A close comparison of Black Elk Speaks with Hilda’s notes revealed that text which is not authentically Black Elk’s (that is, which was written entirely by Neihardt) provided either historical context or a description of historical events which would make the book more accessible to the Western reader. Neihardt stated that at times he reworded the text to better capture what he felt was what Black Elk was trying to communicate. This may seem to be presumptuous, or even a case of falsifying a narrative. Scholars in the decades following the publishing of Black Elk Speaks certainly had a field day on the topic of authenticity in this unusual and unique literary work, but close scrutiny has revealed that Neihardt was remarkably faithful to Black Elk in word and especially in spirit.

Even a quick review of John Neihardt’s life history and literary works helps one to feel reassured that Black Elk Speaks was far from being a work of fiction claiming to be non-fiction. In fact, it would seem that Neihardt’s life naturally culminated in his writing of Black Elk Speaks. His standing as an informed recorder – or perhaps even an authority – of the history of the American West was well documented. Neihardt’s literary works both celebrated the spirit and accomplishments of early explorers like Hugh Glass, Jedemiah Smith and Thomas Fitzpatrick, but also acknowledged the tragic cost of this western expansionism on the native peoples of the Great Plains. As a young man, Neihardt worked in Bancroft, Nebraska, as a clerk for an Indian trader, where he met and befriended many Omahas to the point that, as his daughter Hilda said, Omaha members would set up their teepee in their yard and spend many hours talking with John. It has been recorded that on one occasion Chief White Horse stopped a ceremony to introduce Neihardt as a “fine young man who has the heart of an Indian.” Clearly, it would be out of character for a writer who had devoted his career (he was 50 years old when he met Black Elk) to faithfully voicing the peoples of the Midwest and cultivating relationships of trust with its native peoples to suddenly and inexplicably write a bogus autobiography of an old Lakota man.

John Neihardt was also a “son of the soil” so to speak. Born in Illinois, he spent much of his early childhood in rural Kansas living in a sod hut in the Great Plains. Throughout his life, John resisted the lure of the big cities of the east coast (New York City in particular), preferring the wide-open spaces and the peace and quiet of the Great Plains. He was a religious man but often wrote that he felt closest to God when he was out in nature rather than in a church.

Simply based on a review of his life, it is clear that John Neihardt was an honest and faithful recorder of Black Elk’s experiences and stories. But it goes further than that. Much further.

The mystical bond between these two men was evident right from the beginning. During their first encounter, Black Elk told Neihardt that he was aware of a spirit standing behind Neihardt that had forced the poet to come to Black Elk and “learn a little” from him. In his preface to the 1961 edition of the book, John Neihardt writes about his first meeting with Black Elk:

Black Elk, with his near-blind stare fixed on the ground, seemed to have forgotten us. I was about to break the silence by way of getting something started, when the old man looked up at Flying Hawk, the interpreter, and said (speaking Sioux, for he knew no English): “As I sit here, I can feel in this man beside me a strong desire to know the things of the Other World. He has been sent to learn what I know, and I will teach him.”

Even more extraordinarily, during the first meeting of these two men, Black Elk gifted Neihardt with a star-shaped necklace which Black Elk had inherited from his father (who was also a holy man): not the kind of present which would be given away casually. As John, his son Sigurd and the Lakota interpreter Flying Hawk drove off following the meeting, they all mused on how it seemed that Black Elk had expected their visit, as he had been standing outside his cabin looking in their direction before they drove up. It would have been impossible for Black Elk to have received word about people coming in a car to visit him. “He’s a funny old man,” Flying Hawk commented.

For Black Elk, as per First Nations tradition, the visions in which one obtains powers or medicine teachings are not to be treated lightly and are not communicated to all and sundry. In fact, Black Elk had not spoken of his visions to anyone for more than a quarter century, not even his immediate family, as he had given up his healing practices and traditional ceremonies by the turn of the century, been baptized in 1904 and became an active member of the Catholic Church.

Before communicating his visions to Neihardt, however, Black Elk felt that it was necessary to formalize the relationship between them. So, a public feast was held in which Black Elk adopted John Neihardt as a son and gave him the name Flaming Rainbow (which was such an important image in his Great Vision: it was through a door of multicoloured flames that Black Elk had to pass through in order to gain the knowledge and gifts of the Six Grandfathers). John respected this special relationship by stating in the book’s subtitle, “as told through John G. Neihardt (Flaming Rainbow)” and “by Nicholas Black Elk”.

Both men shared a belief in the power and importance of visions/dreams. After Black Elk told Neihardt the Great Vision that he had received at the age of nine years, John Neihardt told Black Elk about a dream that he had seen at the age of eleven years, while ill with fever. Three times during the same night, Neihardt felt himself hurtling through a vast emptiness at tremendous speed, with his arms stretched forward and a great voice propelling him on. When he recovered from this illness, John felt it to be his mission to become a poet and that the “something” that propelled him both drove and aided him in his writing. The dream was potent enough that twenty years later, Neihardt transformed it into a poem entitled “The Ghostly Brother” in which the speaker realizes:

Though I seek to fly from you,
Like a shadow, you pursue.
Do I conquer? You are there,
Claiming half the victor’s share.
When the night-shades fray and lift,
‘Tis your veiled face lights the rift.
In the sighing of the rain,
Your voice goads me like pain.

Black Elk called Neihardt’s dream a “power vision” and said, “I think this was an Indian brother from the happy hunting grounds who is your guide.” Further, Black Elk had been long burdened with a sadness of wanting to communicate his visions to the world but had never found the means to do so; hoping that Neihardt would be the vehicle, Black Elk said to Neihardt, “It seems that your ghostly brother has sent you here to do this for me.”

Black Elk may have communicated his visions, but it was necessary for Neihardt to translate mystery into language, which is no small feat under the best of circumstances. But Neihardt believed that this was the unique responsibility of an artist. In his view, the artist has an expanded consciousness and is able to peer into a world that most people are not aware of. It is the artist who can bridge the gap between the ordinary states of consciousness and the outer boundaries of consciousness. Art, in its highest expressions, captures and shares a brief glimpse into the mystery.

John Neihardt’s daughter Enid kept a detailed diary of the events and conversations that occurred throughout their three-week stay with Black Elk in 1931. These were made public through the publication of The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk’s Teachings Given to John G. Neihardt, by Raymond DeMallie. In it, Enid describes the situation when her father told Black Elk about how he had written The Song of Hugh Glass, which describes in great detail Glass’s 100-mile crawl through the wilderness after being attacked by a grizzly bear, based on his imagination because he had been unable to visit the route while composing it. When he was finally able to go to visit parts of Glass’s route, John was bracing himself for the inevitable discrepancies between his imagination and real life – but was astounded to see that his poetic vision and on-the-ground reality tallied to an uncanny degree. But Black Elk was not at all surprised and said to Neihardt, “As you sit there, in your mind there is a kind of power that has been sent you by the spirits; and while you are doing this work in describing this land, probably there is a kind of power that did the work for you, although you think you are doing it yourself.”
In a letter to his friend Julius House on June 3, 1931, Neihardt described the amazing sympathy of understanding between himself and Black Elk:
A strange thing happened often while I was talking with Black Elk. Over and over he seemed to be quoting from my poems, and sometimes I quoted some of my stuff to him, which when translated into Sioux could not retain much of their literary character, but the old man immediately recognized the ideas as his own. There was often an uncanny merging of consciousness between the old fellow and myself and he seemed to have remembered it.

In another June 1931 letter – this time to his publisher William Morrow – Neihardt explains his understanding of the extraordinary relationship between himself and Black Elk:
At various times Black Elk became melancholy over the thought that at last he had given away his great vision, and once he said to me, “now I have given you my vision that I have never given to anyone before and with it I have given you my power. I have no power now, but you can take it and perhaps with it you can make the tree bloom again, at least for my people and yours.”

In her book Black Elk and Flaming Rainbow, Hilda Neihardt describes the mystical connection among all those who participated in the weeks-long project of recording Black Elk’s words, especially after their experience at Harney Peak. After the evening meal shared among the Neihardts and Black Elks, they were all “enveloped in the feeling that we had been in the presence of something very large, very mystical, very meaningful” and that “that feeling was to remain with us and to grow in power.”

So complete was the harmony of souls between these two men that Black Elk Speaks impacts many readers viscerally, with Neihardt’s voice blending so well with Black Elk that it seems that only the latter is speaking. It is not just a testament to superb writing style; it is a testament to a shared vision of the world despite the two “visionaries” having very different backgrounds.

Looking at the bigger picture, it has occurred to me that it is not uncommon for a person who has had holy visions to rely on somebody else to serve as their voice. Moses had his experiences with the Divine, but it was his brother Aaron who communicated these experiences and teachings to the assembled tribes of Israel. A similar story is told by the Iroquois (also called Haudenosaunee) of the Great Lakes regarding the “heavenly messenger” Deganawidah who had Hiawatha as his spokesman regarding his visions of the Tree of Peace and the Confederacy of Five Nations (one of the world's first participatory democracies). In India, the holy mystic Ramakrishna spoke a great deal but had limited reach (mostly in and around Calcutta, Bengal); it was his disciple Vivekananda who travelled the world and bowled over audiences with his speeches on Ramakrishna’s teachings in English. The situation of Black Elk and John Neihardt seems to fit a similar pattern, but with a twist: although their cultures and languages were divergent, both shared a deep inner resonance that transcended language, culture and religion. Such a bond is extraordinarily rare and through it a rare gem of mystical literature was created.

I can’t remember a time in which I did not believe in magic. Even when I was quite young I knew that my mother was called ‘fey’ and ‘white witch’ in our small town and she was quite open to talk about her abilities to sense ghosts, douse for water and lost objects without any aids, and tell fortunes by use of a pendulum. And she could tell really good true ghost stories. My mother was a full-blood Highland Scot and she had inherited these ‘spooky’ abilities from her mother (not an uncommon trait, as I was to learn later as an adult). It was just a small part of who my mother was – and not a particularly important part at that.

Then I learned about the other ‘white witch’ - this one with capitals – courtesy of C.S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But I was more interested in Uncle Andrew – the magician who didn’t really know what he was doing – and Queen Jadis (later to become the White Witch) who exterminated her entire world, except for herself, by uttering the Deplorable Word in Lewis’s The Magician’s Nephew and the brainwashing Lady of the Green Kirtle in Lewis’s The Silver Chair. Even though I was fully aware that these were fictitious characters, I caught Lewis’s drift that those who wield extraordinary powers (which is what I thought magic to be) are often of questionable or evil character.

At about the same time, I ended up, through unforeseen circumstances, in the airport of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, for a few hours – after just reading a lot about Voodoo (and seeing the James Bond film Live and Let Die a year earlier didn’t help!): I was absolutely creeped out and was happy when the wheels of the aircraft were free from what I believed to be an absolutely evil country.

Just a few years later, I was thrilled by two fictional magicians of a different nature: Obi Wan Kenobi in the newly released first Star Wars movie and Gandalf the Grey in J.R.R. Tolkien’s works of fantasy. This balanced the negative stereotypes that I had been exposed to earlier and better allayed with the untutored doings of my mother who would never do anything to either harm others or gain anything for herself.

Soon after that, I grew up, put such things behind me, and dove head-first into mysticism, hardly ever looking back. And so it was for several decades. I knew about folk magic through my study of anthropology and certainly believed that people performed genuine magic – though not at the levels of either Galdalf or Queen Jadis!

And then I stumbled across the writings of fringe intellectual and master occultist John Michael Greer. I encountered his writings online back in the days when he was still discussing peak oil and ‘green wizardry’ (that is, simple, time-tested skills for living comfortably in an energy-scarce future). When his writings ventured onto the occult side, he wrote with such clear-headed logic, and provided sound examples and well-defined terms, that I paid attention to what he said about magic. I have now read many of his works on a wide variety of topics.

What does this die-hard mystic (yours truly) think about magic now? After much contemplation upon what Greer has to say, I agree with most of what he has to say. Two things in particular I have appreciated. The first is the definition of magic that he borrowed from the 20^th century occult author Dion Fortune: magic is the art and science of causing change in consciousness in accordance with will. The second is that there is a spectrum on the topic of occultism, in which occultism is in the middle, magic is on one side, and mysticism is on the other. Both deserve a bit of unpacking and discussion.

When we thoroughly contemplate the broad definition of magic given by Dion Fortune (which does not identify whose consciousness is being changed, nor does it state whose will is being exerted), we ultimately come to the conclusion that virtually everything in the human world is touched by magic. It can be something as mundane as motivating myself to get out of bed in the black of pre-dawn morning when I’d really like to stay in bed a little bit longer; or it can be something as powerful as corporate advertising, a witch’s curse, or weapons-grade psychological operations. Anything that deliberately alters one’s own and/or another person’s mood can be termed as magic: music, visual arts, dancing, interior decorating, persuasive argument, affirmations to oneself, engaging in activity that one loves, spending time with people you love – the list is nearly endless. Everything that we say or do, or that others say and do, can (and usually does) contain magic as defined by Fortune (and echoed by Greer).

The main thing that separates the ‘amateurs’ (which is the vast majority of the population) from the ‘pros’ (those who able to effectively curse, summon spirits, or possess nearly Obi Wan Kenobi-like powers of persuasion – that is, real magicians, or ‘mages’ as they often prefer to call themselves) is the will: most people do not train their will – or do so only to the level that is needed to function in society and achieve at least some of their desires – while the ‘pros’ spend years in training their will through various means. I have also come to appreciate that not all magic ‘schools’ are alike: from what I have seen from a distance, there are plenty of what I’d call the ‘grubby type’ which seem content to enable people to get more of what they want in life regardless of motive or consequences; while others, which I would term ‘high magic’, seem to focus on magic as a means of inner discovery and have a very strong code of ethics (prohibiting its use for harming others). I am also saddened to learn that so many branches of magic in the West have abandoned this code of ethics, especially over the past decade or so, and are enthusiastically casting curses on whomever they disagree with. As this habit of cursing has spilled into the political scene, things are even more messed up in the world than they would otherwise be.

A key component of formal magic is ritual: certain things are said in particular ways, usually attended with specific actions, and often involving specific objects. The public is, of course, familiar with magic rituals via Hollywood: chalk circles, incantations, and various (usually disgust-inducing) objects to help make the magical working/spell more potent. Let’s assume that Hollywood is at least partially correct on this count. But what if one substitutes one set of incantations with another (say, with a set of prayers), ritual actions with another (say, the sign of the cross), and ritual objects with another (say, the chalice and the wafer)? Would this be true of Christianity and other religions? Such thoughts will get a lot of religious folks pretty defensive, if not outraged. But my understanding is that adepts in magic clearly see this to be true. I can also say from decades of direct personal experience that the Catholic mass, Hindu poojas, and many other religious ceremonies create a change in consciousness (small compared to changes such as hilarious laughter or abject horror, but discernable just the same) to large groups of people. I have also observed that the degree of change depends largely on the priest conducting the religious ritual: some are clearly better at facilitating the Divine powers/energies better than others.

But at a mundane level, it can be seen that we are engaging in a type of ritual via body language – especially if we perform it deliberately (like parents/caretakers will do to children, or a person will do in order to influence or control another person). We also do it unconsciously via facial expression, use of our hands, putting our fists on our hips when trying to exert authority or express displeasure. If we look at it this way, it can be truthfully said that humans are ‘magical beings’.

As for the occult ‘spectrum’ described by Greer, this makes great sense. In particular, he states that a person who is attracted to the occult may side more on the side of magic, or more on the side of mysticism, but not both. So far, I have found this to be true among people whom I have encountered. There may be exceptions, but I have not encountered any. It is certainly true in my case. I grew up in a household that was very tolerant of, and comfortable with, stuff that was weird or inexplicable: so, I have always been curious about the occult, though for much of my life I did not indulge much in it (unless one counts ghosts, UFOs and bigfoot as ‘occult’). And, excepting one moment when I was fifteen, in which I thought it would be ‘cool’ to get involved in magic, I have never had an interest in taking up magical training. Perhaps it is because throughout my life I have taken to heart a saying: “to reach God, two paths are possible: one is to expand oneself to the point of attaining Godhood; the other is to reduce oneself to the point that you dissolve into God”. I see the first path as belonging more to the practice of magic and the latter more to the practice of mysticism. And it is the latter practice that naturally appeals to me: I am happy to be the river that merges utterly and completely in the ocean of the Divine.

But is it accurate to associate mysticism with the occult? Should it not be associated with religion? Well, not everything in life is ‘either/or’; an argument can be made that it is both. I would argue that there is an inherent connection between the occult and mysticism in the following way: in the course of their experience with the Divine, mystics almost inevitably experience other ‘beings’ (which may be described as intelligences / entities / angels / demons / gods – depending on the culture and orientation of the mystic). Those who are familiar with the biographies, stories and legends of Christian saints, for example, will recall numerous examples of the mystical saints having repeated encounters or struggles with demonic entities. Few are the mystics who only experience ‘the one and only God’, so through direct experience they are affirming the occult in that there is an ‘unseen world’ that is not part of the common human experience.

In my mind, the path of magic carries with it the assumption that one is competent in identifying a change that will benefit the world more than harm it and competent in causing such a change. Through Greer’s writings, I have learned that a responsible mage will not initiate a magical working without first determining whether it is a good thing to do, via divination. But it is possible for a mage to skip over the divination if either they are not well trained or just don’t give a damn. I keep in mind that magic is a tool that can be used for good or ill, depending upon the character of the person wielding that ‘tool’. Also, it has been observed that magic is resorted to by people who feel oppressed and powerless in their lives – and in most of the West, this is a rapidly growing demographic. This in no way is my way of making a blanket condemnation of magic; in a way, it is the opposite! If there are people of good character who feel drawn to a ‘straight and narrow path’ within magic, I wish them all the best! It’s just that I have seen how absolutely horrible things can become in countries where life in general is miserable and then get stuck in a nasty rut because of so much black magic being thrown about by a lot of people at each other. Ugly!

On my mystical path, I do not trust myself with being able to competently identify changes that need to be made to my life or others’ lives (other than the very mundane basics). I do not place much trust in my rational power; rather, I trust my intuition, which I truly believe to be the inner voice of the Divine.

Again, this does not mean that I reject or abhor magic. In fact, there are several aspects of magic that I not only respect but also integrate into my life. One is natural magic: that is, the use of plants and other things to change the mood and mental health of myself and those who are close to me or cleansing a place of negative energies. Another is what is often called ‘folk magic’: extremely simple actions that can be done by anybody to good effect (such as removing the evil eye). Lastly, there are simple protective magical rituals that can keep magical nastiness at bay (which has been constantly on overdrive in our society throughout the 2020s). While I firmly believe in the efficacy of prayers for protection, they seem to be most effective at levels of ‘the Invisible realm’ that are different from the levels where magical protective rituals are most effective. Kinda like having more than one weapon on your person when in battle. If we separate the human into three parts – body, mind, and soul (I prefer a five-fold division that includes the life force and intellect, but we’ll not go there right now) – it is obvious to most that prayers for protection connect to the soul, while physical self-defence connects to the body, but what about the mind? That’s where magical protection comes into play. Just like it does not make sense to have an army pray for protection when an opposing arming is lobbing bombs at them – though members may be praying while engaging the enemy, they are relying a great deal on the physical realm of the weapons, strategies and logistics that are very much at the level of the body – similarly, protective magical rituals help to protect ourselves from what may be accurately termed ‘psychic attack’. Dion Fortune, who was a psychiatrist, a master occultist as well as a practicing Anglican, wrote a very good book entitled Psychic Self-Defense, which is in reality, a manual on protective ritual magic.

So, as a mystic, the full-blown ritual magic discipline is not my thing; but I wish well for those who are intent on doing so in an ethical way and I have no qualms in using simple magic for the sake of protecting and healing oneself. Other mystics may see magic differently – but at present this is my stand.

In my youth I read an anthropologist’s description of a tribal people (somewhere in the Americas, as I recall) whose priests took their job very seriously, especially in the early hours of the morning when they pray for the sun to rise. The anthropologist enquired about their morning ritual and asked the priests what would happen if they did not say these sunrise prayers. I clearly recall my surprise when I read the priests’ response (I am paraphrasing here): “We are bound by our duty to our ancestors and to the world to do this – for we know that if we do not perform these prayers the world will fall apart.” At that particular time in my spiritual path, this seemed to be putting the cart before the horse: do these priests think that they are commanding the turning of the Sun or the Earth (depending on their cosmology)? Is this not arrogance? At the same time, however, I knew that these traditional people were as humble as the Earth herself, and so I figured that I must be missing something. Decades later, I think that I “get it”. But first it may help to look at the bigger picture of prayer, its aims, and its various manifestations.

When I was growing up, prayer was not an important feature of my life. Living in a nominally Anglican family, the only time prayer entered my life was on the rare occasions that we went to church and, for a couple of years in school – maybe grade 2 and grade 3 – the teacher and class recited The Lord’s Prayer as part of our morning assembly (along with singing ‘God Save The Queen’). I never saw my family pray outside of church, nor did they discuss prayer, at least in my company. That all changed when I was 11 years old when a freak storm with hurricane-force winds and several waterspouts hit my family’s small sailboat while at sea. My fear grew as the intensity of the winds increased to the point that the tops of waves were shorn clear off and a waterspout came straight towards our boat. Just before the waterspout hit, I said my first heart-felt prayer to this mysterious God to spare my life. And I immediately felt a connection with some form of consciousness; not at all like addressing an empty void. Needless to say, I survived the ordeal, though the boat sustained quite a bit of damage – some of which I cannot explain to this day (what extremely high intensity winds can do boggles the mind), and I had taken my first tentative steps towards experiencing the Divine. My search began.

During my youth, I researched – and, to some degree, experienced – numerous religious practices from around the world. And much of my research focused on prayer – that is, an intentional activity with the purpose of contacting and communicating with the Divine. What I found sometimes amazed me and oftentimes puzzled me as I compared what I read and observed “externally” with what I did and experienced “internally”.

Obviously, from my personal experience, there are prayers for personal protection (an ‘SOS’ to the Divine, so to speak). When I was a teen, I was surprised and delighted when Wings’ new album “London Town” included a song “Deliver Your Children”. The song was never a popular “hit” but it was a “hit” for me, as the lyrics early in the song ran: 

Well, the rain was a-falling, and the ground turned to mud
I was watching all the people running from the flood
So I started to praying, though I ain't no praying man
For the Lord to come-a-helping, knowing He'd understand
Deliver your children to the good, good life
Give 'em peace and shelter and a fork and knife
Shine a light in the morning and a light at night
And if a thing goes wrong, you'd better make it right

Prayers during time of distress. Done it. And I’ve seen a lot of it. In this I would include the various prayers of protection such as St. Patrick’s Breastplate, for which there are functional equivalents in religions and traditions around the world. I think that they are wonderful.

What I have also seen a lot of is what I call “gimme gimme” prayers. It is turning to the Divine requesting intervention in order to grant one’s desires. I don’t mean to be flippant here. Especially when one’s desires are closely associated with distress (for example, one is unemployed and about to lose one’s house or can’t manage to sufficiently feed one’s own children), it is understandable. But there are plenty of prayers that go heavenward that are for non-essential things. You know, like the famous Janis Joplin song: 

Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends 
Worked hard all my lifetime, no help from my friends 
So, oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?

Some people’s desires seem to be endless, so I guess some of them must have endless prayers going to what (to me) amounts to being the Great Vending Machine in the Sky. Some make it like a business dealing: I’ll please the Divine with some virtuous deeds, good habits or small sacrifice in order to make it seem that what I seek from the Divine isn’t asking outright; rather, it is a transaction”. Still, if one is using the Divine as a means to obtain a worldly end – as these kinds of prayers can easily become – that’s not my cup of tea. I’m more comfortable with “in case of emergency, break glass” for prayers of this category.

More to my liking are prayers for endowing oneself with one or more Divine virtues or ideals. The Prayer of St. Francis – which I have shared with people of many faiths and who nearly universally appreciate and learn it – is one that is close to my heart: 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; 
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console,
To be understood as to understand,
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Finally, I see the kind of prayers that do not seek anything in particular, other than accepting the Divine will as it is. Prayers of gratitude would fit into this category as well. From my perspective, “Thy will be done” is the highest prayer of this type. I see this kind of prayer as being most aligned with the mystical temperament.

Does this mean that some prayers are “inferior” and others “superior”? For a long time, I debated and battled with myself internally with this question. Leaving aside those who may pray in order to show off how “pious” they are, or for similar reasons belonging purely to “this world”, if a person is genuinely praying, is there a “higher” and “lower” prayer? Is it fair to compare the prayers of a person who is living in a virtual “Hell on Earth” with the prayers of a person who is comfortable, has no wants, and can contemplate the Divine to their heart’s content? Is it right for me to even judge? The best answer that I have so far come across regarding the different types of prayers comes from the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 7, verses 16 and 17) which states that there are four types of persons who render service to the Divine:
1 - the distressed (who looks to the Divine due to sorrow or fear),  
2 - the desirer of wealth and related worldly desires such as position and power (who believes that happiness can only be achieved if such things are attained),
3 - the inquisitive (who wants to know the truth about the Divine and pierce the illusion of worldly existence), and
4 - he who seeks to merge with the Divine (that is, who identifies with, and is in union with, the Divine).

Of these four, the last is dearest to the Divine due to their single-minded devotion and unique love for the Divine.

I agree that it is best to strive for one’s prayers to be of the fourth category – but sometimes circumstances may encourage one to “gear down” to one of the other categories - if it works. The story of the sufferings of mystic-saint Ramakrishna due to throat cancer is instructive on this point.  As described in Christopher Isherwood’s book Ramakrishna and His Disciples (page 295): 

… Naren and the others who had been present begged Ramakrishna to cure himself – for their cause if not for his own. ‘Do you think I’m suffering like this because I want to?’ Ramakrishna retorted. ‘Of course I want to get better! But it all depends on Mother’ [i.e., the Divine Mother, whom Ramakrishna worshipped]. ‘Then pray to her,’ said Naren. ‘She can’t refuse to listen.’ Ramakrishna protested that he could never utter such words. But they continued to plead with him and at last he agreed that he would do what he could. A few hours later, Naren asked him, ‘Well, did you pray to her?’ And Ramakrishna told him, ‘I said to Mother, “I can’t eat anything because of this pain – please let me eat a little!” But she pointed to all of you and said, “Why, you’re eating through so many mouths already!” So, then I felt ashamed and couldn’t utter another word.’ 

 Regardless of the motivation of the prayer, I do believe that one can pray in the attitude of a conversation with the Divine. Rather than begging or petitioning, it is possible to raise particular points or concerns, as if talking to a person who is much wiser than oneself, and listen for a reply in the depths of inner silence and the "the peace of God that surpasses all understanding". Of course, it takes much self-discipline to silence the mind enough to perceive such silence and peace – especially if one is in dire circumstances – but the effort is worth it. After all, what greater friend and well-wisher have we than the Divine?

My post “The Three Hermits” brought up the point that it is the feeling that matters more than the words of the prayers. On the other hand, my post “Kipling the Mystic?” alluded to a view that all has been known by the Divine, even to the smallest detail, since before even the act of creation. If the latter is true, is prayer even useful? If the Divine has “written the whole play” ahead of time and will not be changing the lines or roles, why even have prayer?

Well, I have lived long enough to declare with conviction from personal experience that prayer indeed works. Not every prayer. And not every time. And often not in the way that the person who is praying expects or imagines. Each of us only knows as much as the limited “role” given to us in the “play” on the “stage” called the world. And, for all we know, praying may be written as “lines” in our “role”! Besides, for whose sake do we pray? I believe that prayer, ultimately, is for our own sake: if one is in a fearful situation, it is far better to pray than fret or freeze up; and if we are aware of others who are in need, then prayer is good to soften our hearts and keep our awareness expanded to other beings (human and non-human). 

I have also lived long enough to know that prayers to inferior Beings in order to harm others also works – and that it is wise for those who believe in the Divine to invoke Divine protection from such things, as hatred, ill-will and vicious thoughts (which are not as potent as prayers but are often more pervasive – like background radiation) pervade our present time. Returning to the anthropologist’s account of the tribe praying for the Sun to rise, at this later stage in my life, I am no longer puzzled by it, nor do I see a contradiction in it. Rather, I see great beauty, wonder and wisdom in it. In my search of prayer and religious experience around the world, I have come across a recurring ‘myth’ (I don’t know what else to call it, as I cannot personally verify it) that spans continents and many religions that states in various ways that cloistered in the remote parts of the world there exist groups of extremely pious souls whose sole work is prayer for the welfare of the world – and that if they cease their work, the force of entropy at all levels will take over. Given its prevalence, it is a myth that I consider to be entirely possible. It is a common turn of phrase that prayer moves mountains. Perhaps it does a great deal more than that.

Welcome to the Mystical Mountain blog!

In it you will find the ramblings of a self-confessed mystic whose interests include religion, myth, ecology, gardening, the future of industrialization, and a whole lot more. I make no claim to be an expert or authority on any of the above, but I can honestly say that I have both familiarity with and interest in them. And I’ve decided to jot my ideas down for my own sake – and if anybody wants to come along for the ride, all the better! Warning: I am a pretty odd and non-denominational kind of guy, so you may be in for a wild ride…

So, why a blog that is focused on mysticism? It seems to me that we live in a world where, at present, nearly all the ‘oxygen is taken out of the room’ by current world affairs, fads and fashions, politics, culture wars, and the like (I’m not trying to diss this; to each his or her own - but it’s not everyone’s cup of tea). Of course, in the West, religion or belief in the Divine, has been under attack by the dominant culture for more than a century. And then, what little ‘oxygen’ that is left in the ‘room’ for the realm of the Divine / God / transcendental, a great deal is devoted to advocating specific traditional sects or counter-culture spiritual movements. Again, to each his/her own. But for some people, their experience of the Divine is intensely personal and primarily emotional. These are what I term the mystics. And there is very little ‘space’ for such people in modern Western society. But I hope that this is in the process of changing.

If we roughly categorize human approaches to the Divine, we have those who are oriented towards actions: routines, rituals, traditions, trying to make the world a better place based on their understanding of the Divine. This is the path of ‘works’, symbolized by the hands. Then, there are those who are oriented towards discussion, study, research, the intellect. This is the path of ‘wisdom’, symbolized by the head. Finally, there are those who see the Divine not through books or rituals, but through prayer, their personal experience of the Divine and/or seeing the Divine in the world around them. This is the path of ‘worship’, symbolized by the heart. Now, no person of faith will likely belong 100% to one category to the exclusion of the other two – but each of us will be naturally drawn towards one or feels at home with one path more than the other two paths.
I can honestly say that at certain times in my life, and under certain circumstances, I have delighted in religious ritual and in the study of scripture and the writings/sayings of great saints on religious topics. But the core of my religious/spiritual identity is mystical – the way of the heart.
Quite often mystics (either self-described or labelled as such by others) have a powerful otherworldly experience at some point in their life that transforms them in a way that makes their vision highly contemplative, other-worldly, maybe even “crazy” to the eye of the general public and even of fellow-religionists! The mystical path is often a lonely one, but that may be true in only a worldly sense; for, in truth, the mystic feels the companionship of the Divine so intensely that human company pales in comparison. Some mystics are fortunate in finding one or more kindred souls with whom a common viewpoint can be shared. This blog may be an opportunity for some mystics to gather and relate to each other in a world that, frankly, does not understand them nor is interested in trying to understand them.

As for the title of the blog, when I was a youth a wise person told me, “The various religions, sects, and even individuals, are camped at various places encircling the base of the mountain that is God. Each look up at the mountain and see different features on it. Each is right in their own way, as that is what they see. Up the slopes of the mountain there are different paths, each according to the mountain’s terrain. But all these paths merge at the peak. This peak is mysticism – the direct experience of the Divine. At this point difference disappear, for the experience of mystics around the world are remarkably similar.” This imagery deeply impacted me and has stayed with me my whole adult life.

That being said, I would like to share my own abbreviated retelling of Leo Tolstoy’s short story “The Three Hermits” which he says is an old legend that was still being told in the Volga District in the 19th century. The full version of the story is well-worth reading, as are all of Leo Tolstoy’s short stories, since he wrote them after feeling disenchanted with the ways of the world and turned inward to the Divine.

Once there was a bishop who was sailing from Archangel to the Solovetsk Monastery, along with some pilgrims. On the deck of the vessel, a group of pilgrims were gathered around a fisherman who was pointing out to sea. Curious, the bishop went to the group and asked what was being discussed.

“The fisherman was telling us about the hermits,” replied a tradesman.

“Tell me about them,” said the bishop, “I’d like to hear.”

“On a little island ahead is the abode of the hermits who live for the salvation of their souls,” stated the fisherman. “They are holy men. I met them two years ago when I was stranded with my boat on their island. There were three of them. They fed me, dried my belongings and helped me mend my boat.”

The bishop was intrigued and requested the captain to make a detour to the island which was just barely visible on the horizon. The captain tried to dissuade the bishop, saying, “I have heard say that they are foolish old fellows, who understand nothing, and never speak a word, any more than the fish in the sea.” However, the bishop convinced the captain to allow for the detour and to row a boat to shore with the bishop aboard.

As the rowboat came closer to the island, the bishop could see three old men standing on the shore, hand in hand. After introducing himself to the hermits, the bishop said, “Tell me, what are you doing to save your souls, and how you serve God on this island.”

The oldest hermit replied, “We do not know how to serve God. We only serve and support ourselves, servants of God.”

The bishop asked, “But how do you pray to God?”

The hermit answered, “We pray in this way: three are ye, three are we, have mercy upon us.” Then all three hermits repeated the prayer with their eyes raised to heaven.

The bishop then told him that they are not praying correctly and that he will teach them the way to pray which God in the Holy Scriptures commanded all men how to pray to Him. And he patiently taught the Lord’s Prayer to the hermits until they could repeat it back to him perfectly. It took them the whole day. As night fell, the bishop took leave of the hermits, who all bowed down to the ground before him. In the rowboat, the bishop listened to the hermits repeating the Lord’s Prayer as he drew further away from the little island.

Once aboard the ship, the bishop took a seat in the stern and watched the island slowly recede in the distance in the bright moonlight. All was quiet on deck as all the other passengers went to sleep. The bishop reflected on the day, on the good, simple hermits, and he thanked God for having sent him to teach and help these godly men.

By now the island had disappeared below the horizon. But the bishop kept on looking at the spot where he last saw the island. Suddenly, he saw something white and shining in the direction of the island. It grew brighter with each passing second. The bishop gazed in wonder at this inexplicable light, as it looked like neither a boat nor a fish.

Soon the bishop could make out forms within the bright light. It was the three hermits, gleaming white, running on the water itself, though not moving their feet. The helmsman saw them and exclaimed in terror. The passengers woke up and crowded in the stern to see the wonder.

As soon as the hermits reached the ship, they raised their eyes to the bishop and in one voice said to him, “Servant of God, we have forgotten your teaching. As soon as we stopped repeating the prayer, words dropped out and now we can remember nothing of it. Teach us again.”

Crossing himself, the bishop leaned over the ship’s side and said: “Your own prayer will reach the Lord, men of God. It is not for me to teach you. Pray for us sinners.” And he bowed low before the three old men.

The hermits turned and went back across the sea. And at the point where they were lost to sight a light shone until daybreak.

Now, is this story Tolstoy’s way of dissing the Lord’s Prayer? Far from it, as he prefaces the story with the following piece of the gospel:

“And in praying use not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do; for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask Him.” (Matt. Vi, 7, 8)

Prayer is a universal component of being human. I don’t know of a single culture that does not have prayer. Even the national anthems of some relatively secular societies include prayer (for example, O Canada has the line “God keep our land glorious and free” – a relatively recent revision to the anthem). Much has been said about prayer, its power, and its benefits, over the millennia.

Sometimes I struggle with prayer in the sense that daily I engage in many “set” prayers – some of them several minutes in length. At the same time, I also daily engage in “spontaneous” prayer – that is, prayers that come straight from what I am thinking and feeling at the time. And sometimes my prayer simply consists of the words, “Thy will be done; not mine” and listening for what the Divine’s will is. But at all times I try my best to put my concentration and my heart into what I am saying in order to avoid the situation described by Claudius in Hamlet (Act 3, Scene 3), “My words fly up, my thoughts remain below. / Words without thoughts never to heaven go.”

But if the Divine is all-knowing and wise, is prayer even necessary? Who are we to tell the Divine what to do? What does prayer actually accomplish? For many people who are on the Divine path, such questions inevitably arise, even if it is once in their lifetime.

More musings on prayer as we proceed.