CLEARING THE CHANNELS (updated & reposted)

Fall of the Berlin Wall, 1989

Robert Graves

PRECISELY WHEN IT ALL STARTED is worth putting on the record. It was around 0320 hours Kuala Lumpur time, 10th November, 1989. In Berlin it would have been approximately 2020 hours, November 9th. Just about the time The Wall was being dismantled.

What happened to me and my friend Mary Maguire at that particular time could be called a transdimensional breakthrough. I know it sounds rather pompous,  considering how silly the entire exercise might appear to certain people.

What were we doing? Fooling around with a what? A ouija board. And who did you say contacted you? Robert Graves. Which Robert Graves? The famous poet, scholar and author? The man who wrote The White Goddess and I, Claudius and Claudius the God?

Ha ha, nice try.

Look, I'm not in the habit of attending seances, reading tea leaves, or playing with ouija boards. And until this thing happened I didn't even know who Robert Graves was. Nor had I read any of his books or poems, believe it or not.

Hmmmm...

Arthur Koestler

That's a perfectly understandable response. This is the Age of the Mighty Microchip. We don’t burn witches anymore. The Ghost In The Machine? Isn't that the name of a Police album? Well, it's also the title of an Arthur Koestler book I never got round to reading. But I always liked the image it conjured. As a young man I was greatly stimulated by Koestler. When he turned, in his later years, to parapsychological research I was pleased. Here was an intellect of undeniable probity and precision lending itself to serious investigation of the more mystical areas of metaphysics. It could only signal one thing: that the mind of contemporary man was undergoing a shift from the red end of the energy spectrum to the blue. In Koestler's own terms: from the Commissar back to the Yogi.

Events in Europe since November 1989 have borne out this spectrum shift. Witness the dramatic transfiguration of the sociopolitical status quo in what used to be called the Soviet bloc. For humanity as a whole, however, the blue-shift toward spiritual reintegration has not been progressing smoothly. The collective consciousness of most industrial nations remains stubbornly mired in the intellectual materialism that has engendered varying degrees of concealed totalitarianism. In far too many instances the primitive hostility and obscurantism which springs from Fear still rules the imaginations of influential men and women who rule the hearts and minds of entire populations.

Now you may ask: what has this to do with ouija boards and posthumous dialogues with famous poets?

I have long been convinced that all brutishness, greed, malice and deceit stem from assorted fears - and all fears ultimately arise from Fear of the Unknown. And the Ultimate Unknown is Death.

The “Godfearing" fear God's punishment: everlasting death. In view of this I have - like any civilized soul - assiduously practised the overcoming of my own thanatophobia. My fear of death, in other words.

But it is one thing to confront the evident inevitability of physical death on a purely conceptual level - and quite another to find yourself enjoying a cup of tea and a friendly chat with someone who allegedly expired several years ago. Anyone who has experienced something like this stands a good chance of acquiring fearlessness.

Let me try and explain how these transdimensional dialogues with "Robert Graves"* came about. When "Robert" broke through on the ouija board he seemed to have been drawn to the scene by Mary's presence. Before the session with the board Mary had been reclining on a couch. "Robert" mentioned that she had reminded him of someone he used to know, someone named Eddie: a pensive and languid lad of 19 who - heartbroken with jealousy - had drowned himself in a pond.

"Robert" also reported that he was attracted to my thought-field which he described as "friendly." After about an hour of conversing via the board (with astonishing fluency, I must add) I intuited that Mary and "Robert" were sufficiently attuned to one another's mental frequency for her to attempt direct channeling with pen and paper.

Robert Graves with his muse in Deya, Mallorca 

Mary had had no prior experience with the process called automatic writing (I personally prefer the term spontaneous writing) – but she took to it with remarkable ease. Looking over her shoulder as she worked, I was struck by her aura of secretarial efficiency. The erratic spelling and non-existent punctuation were all hers - but the substance and syntax were clearly emanating from a mysterious source. Whenever I wanted to comment on something or ask a question, I would verbalize it as if addressing a presence in the room. I also tried directing questions at "Robert" telepathically - but the results were unpredictable and inconsistent. Later, as I developed the ability to "channel" I found it unnecessary to vocalize my thoughts and questions.

My own initial attempts at channeling were a little "choppy" till I managed to relax completely and suspend all disbelief. The flow became smoother as I lost my self-consciousness and stopped wondering how much of it was "me." It's interesting to note that after "Robert" made the transition to an expanded frequency range I gradually took on Mary's role of "scribe"`and began to perform spontaneous writing exercises with greater regularity, to keep my neural pathways open.

Spontaneous writing is not unlike keeping a diary - but here the emphasis is on one's inner life. The act of opening the notebook and uncapping my pen seems to trigger a special circuit that plugs me into Inspiration at its source.

Perhaps it's a way of transmuting the contents of the sub- and superconscious into everyday Consciousness. In any case the process of letting "strange” signals flow through my brain and onto paper teaches me not to take the limits of my egoic existence too seriously.

I must include three other observations: (i) a degree of skill with translating thought into language definitely helps and both Mary and myself can lay claim to being writers of one species or another; (ii) both of us have dabbled in theater and might therefore be described as empathetic by temperament; (iii) during the first encounter with "Robert" we had both been psychically primed by a few cups of strong tea laced with the juice of psilocybin mushrooms.**

Our experience of euphoria and heightened awareness lasted several weeks beyond the initial contact with "Robert". I first began to feel the gravity of mundane reality again after witnessing newsreels of the carnage in Romania on Christmas Eve.

Robert Graves in his 50s

THE ABILITY TO CHANNEL is a faculty inherent in everyone, though certain types of individuals seem more predisposed to developing their sensitivity as mediums. Poets, composers, dancers, writers, sculptors, painters, and orators have traditionally acknowledged their personal daemons and muses. The same gift of inspiration has also manifested itself in the lives of many scientific geniuses. Scriptures have been revealed by similar process through the agency of individuals with specialized neural pathways. What's truly surprising, therefore, is that people seem to have grown so grossly unmindful of their spiritual links to all the other dimensions of being. If heightened awareness leads to greater awakeness then a huge percentage of the human race is fast asleep. Asleep to its own divine origin and destiny, to its own true potential.

So where the hell is it all coming from?

Bearing in mind that any working model of Reality can at best be considered a tool to help us attain some conscious mastery of our lives, let's examine the arcane teaching that Human Experience is essentially a 7-dimensional affair. And to simplify things let's call these dimensions "levels" - or frequency bands.

Lower frequencies generate greater apparent mass or solidity. So we may visualize the different levels as a series of "kingdoms" of ascending sublimity: mineral, vegetable, animal, elemental, mental, archangelic, deific. The "higher" levels incorporate and complement the "lower" and vice versa. Where does the human being fit in? It varies from one individual to another. The fully realized individual functions consciously on all seven levels. The vast majority of humans, however, appear to be enmeshed in the specific dramas of Levels 3, 4 and 5.

Level 3 is the physical plane, the animal being with its amazing sensory structures. What we call 3-dimensional reality, the tangible world.

Level 4 is the elemental (or astral) plane where the sense of space does not exist (or if it does, it's highly elastic): this is where we "go" in our dreams and in states of death or deep trance. Devas, demons, and disembodied souls abound on Level 4. Thought-forms of limited volition abide in this timeless Twilight Zone that could well be an aspect of Time itself.

The realm of pure thought - Level 5 - is where the Muses live. This is where the Intellect originates, where the Imagination becomes articulate. Five is the firmament of Mind where Ideas float like clouds.

It is the sacred grove where the Poet trysts with his Beloved and is consumed by Eternity. When Mary and I first met "Robert Graves" (a well-named ghost, I had quipped) the man had been disincarnate for nearly four years, earthtime. The Poet was one at last with his White Goddess and "Robert" had himself become a full-fledged Muse.

On Level 6 the ego-personality diffuses into the perfect principle of cosmic love, compassion, and healing light. Here the concept of gender is irrelevant. Six is rightly called the archangelic realm, for it is through archangelic action that the lower kingdoms are sustained. In the myth of Lucifer/Prometheus the Archangel/Titan is erroneously said to have "fallen from Grace"; in truth the Bringer of Light voluntarily forswears Godhood in order to rescue other sentient souls trapped in the lower realms.***

Similarly, the emotive force of the Christ initiation lies in the idea of a voluntary fall, crucifixion, resurrection and return to the Godhead which, for us, is the Absolute Reality of Level 7. In effect "where the hell it's all coming from" is wholly relative to what level of awareness we’re functioning at.

Robert Graves in his 60s

"ROBERT GRAVES" developed into a splendid transdimensional conundrum for us. Having introduced himself as Mary's platonic lover from her previous life he went on to become my spirit friend from Level 5 - and eventually established contact with me on a heroic, archetypal and mythic level - playing Zeus to my Cronos, Castor to my Pollux, Romulus to my Remus, and so forth. Finally "Robert" extended his being onto Levels 6 and 7 and was transformed into the voice of our own infinite potential.

Eventually we were faced with a difficult decision: whether to go public with the material or limit it to a manageable circle of friends. "Robert" himself at one point expressed his indifference as to the outcome of our sessions. He said he trusted us with the material. We toyed with the idea of publishing anonymously or under a pseudonym. But then why mystify what's already and always mysterious? Besides (I reminded myself) all names are ultimately meaningless. Nonetheless I've always found anonymous notes, phonecalls, tracts or reviews extremely annoying. So we see-sawed between doubt and decision for a while until one day it suddenly became very clear: the "Robert" contact had restored and reinforced my sense of purpose and given Mary a whole new perspective on her life (or rather, lives) Why couldn’t it do the same for others?

Encouraged by the open-minded interest shown by many of our friends and by the outstanding example of inspired sensitives like H.P. Blavatsky, Alice A. Bailey, Jane Roberts, Dorothy Maclean and David Spangler (to name but a few) Mary and I felt we simply had to do our bit for the Aquarian Dispensation. whereupon "Robert" waxed enthusiastic and gave us his unconditional blessings.

To Mikhail S. Gorbachev we owe a very special debt of gratitude for reminding us of the virtues of glasnost and the power we hold in our own hands for perestroika on a planetary scale.

Antares (Kit Leee)

Kuala Lumpur,

Easter Sunday, 1990

______________________________________________________________________

* Robert’s name occurs in quotes because there has thus far been no incontrovertible proof that we were in contact with the surviving intelligence of the late great poet. However, our subsequent research into Graves' life and work has only reinforced the feeling that it was him all right. In any case all names are ultimately unimportant except as a form of "station identification."

** I have myself eaten the hallucinogenic mushroom, psilocybe, a divine ambrosia in immemorial use among the Masatec Indians of Oaxaca Province, Mexico; heard the priestess invoke Tlaloc, the Mushroom-god, and seen transcendental visions. Thus I wholeheartedly agree with R. Gordon Wasson, the American discoverer of this ancient rite, that European ideas of heaven and hell may well have derived from similar mysteries. ~ Robert Graves, in his foreword to The Greek Myths, 1960

*** "The Manichaean tradition knows that the Holy Ghost is the transformed Lucifer and the dove is the transformed serpent; and that the Grail was once formed from the precious stone in the crown of Lucifer and was filled with the blood of Christ who redeems Lucifer himself." ~ Trevor Ravenscroft, The Cup of Destiny

The controversial Gnostic teacher John Lamb Lash suggests that Lucifer, like Pan, was deliberately conflated with the Devil/Satan by the Roman Church as part of a strategy to disconnect humans from Mother Nature. Indeed, Lash makes a convincing case that Lucifer and Sophia are interchangeable names for what he calls the Planetary Animal Mother, source of all life in the solar system.

TO BRING THE DEAD TO LIFE

by Robert Graves

To bring the dead to life

Is no great magic.

Few are wholly dead:

Blow on a dead man's embers

And a live flame will start.

Let his forgotten griefs be now,

And now his withered hopes;

Subdue your pen to his handwriting

Until it prove as natural

To sign his name as yours.

Limp as he limped,

Swear by the oaths he swore;

If he wore black, affect the same;

If he had gouty fingers,

Be yours gouty too.

Assemble tokens intimate of him -

A seal, a cloak, a pen:

Around these elements then build

A home familiar to

The greedy revenant.

So grant him life; but reckon

That the grave which housed him

May not be empty now:

You in his spotted garments

Shall yourself lie wrapped.

[First posted 23 June 2015, reposted 9 November 2015, 9 November 2017 

& 10 November 2019]

PRELUDE TO "THE POET AND THE PENDULUM"

Fall of the Berlin Wall, 9 November 1989

ON 9 NOVEMBER 1989 the Berlin Wall was dismantled. A different kind of barrier was breached for Mary Maguire and myself on that unforgettable day. We broke through to the spirit realms in our waking state.

For weeks we were on an incredible buzz. It seemed as if the entire paradigm of reality had shifted - well, it definitely did, for us. When I had calmed down a little I reconstructed what had transpired into a short story - well, not THAT short, it had to be split into two parts - fictionalizing a few minor details and compressing the sequence of events to make it work as a linear narrative.

The Poet and The Pendulum was selected for the Skoob Esoterica Anthology (Vol. II) scheduled for release in 1997. Apparently the completed book was already at the printer's. Unfortunately, the editor died and the publisher went broke and that was the end of it.

I recently unearthed the original typewritten foolscap MS from my rusty filing cabinet and decided to scan all 20 pages of it for publication online. Very few have been shown this story because the proceedings were simply too weird for mass consumption. But now that we've moved fully into the Photon Band (a belt of highly-charged light particles), nothing needs to be "classified" any longer.

In 1990 Mary and I assembled our notes into a collection of spontaneous writings called The Muse Who Came To Tea. After unsuccessfully attempting to interest mainstream publishers in the project, the manuscript was left to gather dust. I now recognize that the problem with this material is that it's too way-out for the Hardheads - and not airy-fairy enough for the Softheads!

Is there a book market for Heads that are neither hard nor soft? But let's hope that in the New Millennium the Vatican will voluntarily disclose the third Fatima Prophecy and open up its secret vaults. Then perhaps we won't need to publish any more books because the Vatican, along with other modern incarnations of the Amen priesthood, will self-destruct or self-transform!

FREEDOM OF INFORMATION... NOW!

[First posted 9 November 2011]

THE POET AND THE PENDULUM (Part Two)

Part Two

AFTER POEY LEFT we sat around some more drinking coffee and discussing David’s predisposition towards priestliness. I intimated that the Amen priesthood was still very much at large - some might even say in charge - cleverly camouflaged as big bureaucracy. But the idea was too debilitating to dwell upon. David’s appetite for mystical adventures, alas, proved insatiable:

“Have you ever fooled around with a ouija board?”

Oh well, one time or another... just for the hell of it... but I couldn’t recall anything worth recording ever emerging from the few sessions I’d witnessed as a kid.

“If you have a piece of cardboard...” David’s enthusiasm was infectious, that’s for sure. In half-an-hour we had rigged up a workable board with the alphabet felt-penned clockwise around it. An old coffee jar lid served as our marker.

“Let’s do this with the proper ceremony,” David insisted. “Is there some incense around the house? And a candle would be a nice touch.”

I found an antediluvian packet of Lotus Feet incense tucked away among my paperbacks. The candle posed no problem at all. Soon the four of us - David, Mary, Suganthi, and myself - were seated round the ouija board with our index fingers resting lightly on the coffee jar lid.

A minute tiptoed by without a snigger.

Two minutes minuetted under the moonlight to the musical hum of my philharmonic mosquitoes. In another moment three otherwise intelligent adults would be glaring at David in befuddled annoyance...

The lid began to slide across the cardboard surface. It traced a determined path around the letters, as though memorizing the alphabet. Then it glided back to the center and waited.

We exchanged glances, each wondering whether the other knew what to do next. David took the initiative: “We welcome you to the circle. How shall we address you?”

The lid slid slowly and sinisterly over the letters T, A, R, I, Q.

“Tariq? Is that your name?”

There were two extra circles on the board, one marked YES and the other NO. ‘Tariq’ headed directly to the YES circle.

“Er... Tariq... we’re happy to meet you. Can you tell us where you come from?”

P, A, K, I, S, T A, N.

At least that’s what David read. I admit to having lost track of the message after the first four letters.

“Do you have a message for us, Tariq?” That was Mary, retired Tarot reader and terminal fruitcake.

YES.

We waited with, as they say, bated breath. No movement... then a random meander at variable speed.

“Er... Tariq? We asked if you had a message for us?”

YES... I, A, M, T, R, A, P, P, E, D.

“Trapped.”

Mary: “Where are you trapped?”

I, N, E, T, E, R, N, I, T, Y.

“In eternity! Wow! Who trapped you there, Tariq?”

N, 0, N, E, T, 0, B, L, A, M, E, B, U, T, M, Y, S, E, L, F.

“Tariq... can we help you in any way?”

NO.

“How long have you been trapped?”

A, N, E, T, E, R, N, I, T, Y.

I was beginning to enjoy this. Mary, bless her soul, sounded concerned: “But are you happy, Tariq?”

W, H, A, T, I, S, H, A, P, P, I, N, E, S, S?

Very profound spirit, possibly. But I could tell we weren’t going to have much to converse with Tariq about; he seemed totally wrapped up in his predicament. As we racked our brains for a way to continue the dialogue, the lid began moving again:

N, 0, F, E, M, A, L, E, S.

“No females? What do you mean, no females?” demanded Mary the usually reasonable feminist.

D, A, V, I, D, K, N, 0, W, S, W, H, Y.

“Do you, David?”

David suggested that the girls remove their fingers from the lid for a while. Within seconds, with only David and me as conductors, the coffee jar lid was zipping about demonically. But it wasn’t making any sense.

“I’m not sure I like what’s going on,” Mary mumbled.

David the diplomat interceded: “Tariq... would you explain why you object to the females?”

M, A, Y, B, E, L, A, T, E, R.

We got nothing coherent from Tariq for a long while. Just a lot of kinetic discharge. I decided to put an end to it: “Er... Tariq... we thank you for being with us. We wish you all the best. Now please return to eternity. Goodbye.”

Everyone was glad Tariq was gone. Mary yawned: “Time for me to call a cab.”

“No need for that. I’m taking Suganthi home. I’ll drop you off where there are latenight cabs.” It was coming up five in the morning.

Driving back with David later, I couldn’t help mulling over Tariq’s ominous pronouncement: NO FEMALES. What a horrible concept. Or was it Tariq’s complaint? Trapped in eternity with no feminine company. God! Supposing a character like Khomeini came through on the ouija board... ah, but we could always shoo him away with incantations from my Salman Rushdie novels.

David left the next day to rejoin his family in another town. I didn’t have much time to bask in my solitude. Mary burst in, bubbling with excitement.

“I’ve been doing a lot of research with the pendulum,” she announced. “Do you know, I’ve always been male. This is my first attempt at womanhood!”

“You’re not doing too badly,” I reassured her.

“But that explains why I’ve had such difficulties with my menstrual cycle. All these years, I’ve never been pregnant - not once! I suspected I was incapable of conceiving!”

“I have an idea!” I said. “Let me try and stimulate your biomagnetic field with my pendulum.”

“Oooh, sounds like fun,” she responded, jumping out of her clothes.

It seemed to have some positive effects. However, it’s a little too soon to tell if the pendulum also works as an aid to natural healing. I have no doubt that within certain limits it can be used to diagnose: unhealthy or injured organs tend to produce a null field which can be readily detected by the pendulum. End of medical digression.

“I’ve been doing a fair bit of probing myself,” I confessed. “I hate to tell you this, but I appear to have enjoyed a ridiculously illustrious past.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Mary without sarcasm. Another wonderful thing about her. “Well... are you going to tell?”

“I may also have been David Livingstone and Emanuel Schikaneder.”

“Livingstone I’ve heard of, the lost explorer, right? But who’s the other chap? You don’t mean Chicken Little?”

“No, Schikaneder. Mozart’s librettist on The Magic Flute.”

“Oh... at least you aren’t claiming to have been Wolfgang himself.”

I chuckled and said: “Ah, but I’ve discovered that Mozart’s wife Constanze is still around. In fact, she’s residing in Kenny Hill.”

“You don’t mean that pretty pianist friend of yours, Ms Chan?”

“Nein, Constanze is now a man - and he plays the ‘cello.”

“What, Hans Solltenich, of the Goethe Institute?”

We giggled a bit about it. Reincarnational research can be a barrel of laughs. Mary’s eyes were ablaze with irrepressible affection:

“Guess what, I managed to track down fifteen incarnations in which we’ve known each other. In eight of those you were my brother.”

“Really?”

“And you were my kid sister once - in Ireland in the early 9th Century. We had an incestuous relationship. Later I married Alan.”

“You turned gay?”

“No, Alan was female then.”

I roared with mirth: “Too much!” This inspired me to pick up the pendulum once more and we spent the entire day engaged in esoteric research. I was particularly keen to find out what really happened in Palestine during the Roman occupation government of Herod Antipas. Strangely, the pendulum seemed unable to help us at first. Some invisible power held it down so that it couldn’t move.

“I think some depraved mentalists have installed a psychic seal on the Palestinian mystery,” I said, relishing the flavor of conspiracy and paranoia. “Some entities apparently thrive on official secrets.”

Mary managed to break through at last. She discovered that visualizing the color purple had the effect of nullifying the blocks. And thus we proceeded step by step to try and unravel the mystery of the Piscean initiation. Once in a while, when Mary got tired of sneaking past the psychic seals, she’d resort to bullying, and it worked. “Don’t give me this bullshit! I know what your silly little game is, so don’t mess with me! Now... did some sneaky slimy creep put a seal on this?” The pendulum would sheepishly begin to spin... and soon we’d be getting some straight answers.

“I forgot to mention,” Mary boasted, “that more than a few of my incarnations were of a warlike nature. In the 9th Century we were royal twins somewhere in India. You were the scholar and I stormed off to battle, only to get myself killed.”

“Makes sense to me,” I smiled. By now my living room was cluttered with reference works. It certainly helps to have a few names, dates, and places to juggle with. But the problem is all the juicy stuff is tightly locked from honest sight in the Vatican vaults. Someday… soon!

We went out and had a good feed. Both of us felt very alive and elated. Our electrical fields were fully charged. Time had dilated around us and the immediate reality was a lot less relevant than it normally seems. In this perfect state of mind we drove home to my secret laboratory and put the kettle on for perhaps the fifth time that day.

As I served tea, Mary was busy lighting a candle. “Let’s work the board again,” she suggested. I had no particular objection. Nor was I particularly keen. The results we’d had thus far weren’t too impressive. The ouija phenomenon was evidently related to the unconscious telekinetic power of the participants’ minds. Still, the ouija could be a fun way to sharpen telepathic affinities. I was convinced, too, that the board worked like a primitive tuner which we could use to receive mental frequencies not normally accessible to us. The ritual itself surely helped to generate an atmosphere of higher receptivity - an essential factor in the various fields of psychic research.

The first spirit visitor that arrived was our old friend Tariq.

“Hello, Tariq,” I said a bit warily.

I, W, A, N, T, T, 0, H, E, L, P.

“Thank you, Tariq. How can you help us?”

I, A, M, A, J, I, N, N.

“He’s a what?” Mary asked, whispering.

“Jinn,” I said. “A genie, you know, the Arabian nights?”

Mary found it very amusing: “Now I see... he’s our message in a bottle.”

Tariq didn’t seem to be offended by our levity. Instead he dragged our fingers about the board with startling energy, a couple of times with such vigor that the coffee jar lid fell right off the board. As soon as we replaced it, the movement would recommence. There was no stopping this jinn. Suddenly, after a full minute or two of this frenetic activity, Tariq became coherent again. He spelled out:

I, G, 0, N, 0, W.

And Tariq was gone. The lid stayed motionless beneath our fingers. But only for a few moments; a discernible surge of energy now reanimated it. The lid sailed fluently over the letters:

B, 0, B, 0.

“Bob?” I enquired. “Is your name Bob?”

A brief pause - then the lid moved with a certain deliberate dignity:

R, 0, B, E, R, T.

“We bid you welcome, Robert,” I began. “What are you... er, are you a person?”

YES ... S, A, M, E, A, S, Y, 0, U.

“Well, then, do you have a surname?”

G, R, A, V, E, S.

“Robert Graves!” Mary said, surprised.

“The poet, of course.” I assumed that much.

YES.

“Delighted to meet you, Robert,” I said, feeling a tinge of unbidden skepticism. Unfortunately, I am ignorant enough about poets for almost any impostor to fool me. But so what, I thought...

H, E, L, L, 0, M, A, R, Y.

“Why, hello, Robert,” said Mary inanely.

W, H, 0, I, S, Y, 0, U, R, F, R, I, E, N, D?

“Oh.” Mary proceeded to introduce me to Robert.

“Do you two know each other from somewhere?” I asked Mary.

Robert answered my question:

I, K, N, E, W, H, E, R, A, S, E, D, D, I, E.

“Eddie? Was that her last incarnation?”

YES.

“Have you come to see me for a special reason, Robert?” Mary asked.

A, L, L, S, 0, U, L, S, T, U, E, S, D, A, Y.

“All Souls’ Tuesday!” Mary exclaimed. “Nobody I know observes All Souls’ Tuesday anymore - but three days ago I was arguing with my colleague about it!”

L, 0, 0, K, E, D, F, 0, R, Y, 0, U, A, T, L, U, N, C, H …

The lid was skimming very smoothly and swiftly around the board now…

A, N, D, Y, 0, U, W, E, R, E, N, T, T, H, E, R, E.

“Did Eddie kill himself?”

YES.

I looked at Mary and she looked right back.

“I need a cigarette,” she said. “Robert, could you hang on while I light a cigarette?”

0, F, C, 0, U, R, S, E.

I took the chance to light one up myself. “Robert, do you remember when you... er... passed on?”

E, I, G, H, T, Y, F, I, V, E.

“1885?” I really had no idea whatsoever when Robert Graves lived and died. He might have been a touch offended because he didn’t bother correcting me. We looked up some books later and learned that he, in fact, died in 1985 at the age of ninety.

I tried another tack: “Robert... could you describe Eddie to us?”

H, E, W, A, S, R, A, V, I, S, H, I, N, G.

Mary was extremely pleased. “I still am, Robert,” she chirped.

I, N, D, E, E, D.

Just then I had an inspiration: “Robert, now that you’ve contacted Eddie... I mean Mary... do you think we could communicate with pen and paper instead of this clumsy old board?”

W, E, C, A, N, T, R, Y.

And so we did. Mary wasn’t at all confident that she could receive initially. I put a pen in her hand and suggested that she relax completely. I was quite sure somehow that Robert would come through. A few moments later Mary’s pen hand trembled a little - and she started transcribing. I peered over her shoulder, feeling a bit uneasy that I might be intruding (but Robert insisted he didn’t mind at all):

I’M SO HAPPY I FOUND YOU AGAIN. THERE WERE SO MANY THINGS I WANTED TO TRY AND EXPLAIN TO YOU BUT YOU COULD NOT UNDERSTAND AND I DIDN’T HAVE THE TIME TO KEEP ON TRYING TO MAKE YOU SEE THAT THE LOVE I HAD FOR YOU WAS ONE OF THE PUREST THINGS I EVER FELT. IT WAS THE SOURCE OF ENDLESS INSPIRATION TO ME. FOR YEARS AFTER YOU CLOSED THE DOOR FOREVER I TRIED TO FEEL WHAT YOU MUST HAVE EXPERIENCED AS THE GREEN WATERS ENFOLDED YOU. TRY AS I COULD I NEVER FELT ANY TERROR; JUST A SILENT RESIGNATION. YOU ALWAYS WERE SO STRONG-WILLED.

I AM COMFORTED TO KNOW THAT THE EXPERIENCE DID NOT IMPAIR YOUR ZEST FOR LIFE. I REJOICE THAT YOU ARE HAPPY AND THAT THE LOVE YOU HAD FOR ME OUTLIVED THE GRAVE. FOR MY PART YOU STILL ARE AND ALWAYS WILL BE MY DESDEMONA.

I decided to excuse myself by making another round of tea. “Mary, ask Robert if he'd like a cuppa, too.” When I returned with three steaming cups (“This is Robert’s. Milk, no sugar.”) - Mary paused to show me what she’d just transcribed:

I HAVEN’T BEEN OFFERED A DECENT CUP OF TEA SINCE MY DEMISE. SORRY I CAN’T DRINK IT BUT KNOWING YOU DID MAKE ONE FOR ME IS WONDERFUL. SOMETIMES I WONDER IF I STILL EXIST TOO. YOU’VE CONFIRMED FOR ME THAT, YES, I DO STILL EXIST.

We became firm friends, the three of us. Mary and I kept remarking that it had been some time since we’d been in such good spirits. Every day Mary would happily serve as secretary while we conducted highly spirited three-way conversations. It was sort of like an on-going dialogue between the 3rd and 5th dimensions. Mary had a greater sensitivity to Robert’s frequency. She was able to carry on chatty little exchanges with him all day. Occasionally, I’d try beaming my thoughts to Robert telepathically while Mary stood by to write down his replies. It didn’t work every time but often enough to convince me it was only a question of attunement and practice. One afternoon, in the middle of a session with Robert, my phone rang. It was a friend who had just seen a Peter Weir film called The Dead Poets’ Society - she wanted to know if I had seen it. I suppose Mary and I had become life members of that society, whether we liked it or not. And we liked it very much.

I MUST CONFESS, DEAREST EDDIE, THAT I’VE NOT REALLY WANTED TO (RETURN TO PHYSICAL EXISTENCE). I’VE BEEN UP TO MY OLD TRICKS MUSING A LOT AND GENERALLY WASTING TIME. I’VE STARTED SO MANY PROJECTS BUT HAVEN’T COMPLETED ANY OF THEM SO FAR. I EVEN TRIED TO WRITE A SHORT DRAMA - A SORT OF OUTLINE OF MY LIFE’S WORK WITH ASPIRATIONS AND HOPES. BUT I COULDN’T QUITE GET IT RIGHT. THE PROBLEM IS THERE IS NO ONE TO DISCUSS THESE THINGS WITH. MOST OTHER FORMS I ENCOUNTER ARE BUSY FULFILLING THEIR OWN LITTLE PETTINESSES. NO ONE WANTS TO SPEND TIME WITH AN OLD MUSE LIKE ME.

Cronos battling Zeus

Robert proved to be a Muse of many moods - and a vital, labyrinthine mind capable of fresh inputs. He hadn’t only written poetry, of course. His best known work was historical fiction (I, Claudius and Claudius the God) and scholarly expositions of ancient Hebrew and Greek myths. We managed to get him interested in pendulum research and before long discovered our complex reincarnational links. He may well have been Nefertiti’s father Ay - but his genetic memory certainly linked his experience with mine in the most epic and mythical ways imaginable. I was Cronos and he had deposed me as Zeus. We were Remus and Romulus - but he had a city named for him and I didn't! Together we had played out every role in the universal pantheons and were now reborn as friends. Friends beyond time.

“Bobo,” Mary told me one day. “That’s what Eddie used to call Robert.”

“That’s how he first announced himself, remember?”

Robert seemed particularly obsessed with the unseen causes of the First World War in which he had lost a great many of his best friends. In fact, he was convinced that the entire exercise had been engineered by evil profiteers out to make a killing in the armaments market - and that the whole gruesome deal had been carried through with the connivance of various prominent politicians.

It was no surprise to me, for I had recently read about the ugly business scams conducted in the name of the Vatican by a conspiracy of control-freak elitists and the Mafia. They wouldn’t stop at murder. The pillage and plunder of our precious planet was all they lived and died for. But that was little comfort to Robert’s wounded soul. He had been permanently scarred by his belated discovery that the world was not quite what it could or ought to be. That the world was - at least on the physical plane - really a raging battlefield of light and dark forces: one faction committed to waking up the sleepers and the other committed to keeping the unawake asleep. There were times when Robert felt ready to fight.

But who do we fight if not ourselves? I began to nudge Robert’s thoughts away from pessimism and passivity - and towards the realization that there were perhaps higher levels of awareness to which he could aspire. We had already established that Robert existed as pure thought on Level Five - the mental plane. Now if he could just open his heart to the higher frequencies...

It happened in the wee hours of the 20th of November, 1989. Twelve hours earlier Robert had been in an exultant mood, hallelujaing about planetary redemption through the universal attainment of Christ consciousness. Then he exhausted his emotional energies and fell into a sense of gloom and self-doubt. He rambled on maudlinly about the utter helplessness of his situation. He couldn’t go higher. And he couldn’t enjoy the simple pleasures of the the physical senses the way we earthbound beings could. In any case, he felt he'd had enough of all that. An idea flashed into my mind:

“Mary, let’s work the board once more.”

This time I emptied my thoughts and concentrated on pure cosmic love - Level Six. The lid began to move...

Our visitor announced itself as LOVE.

“Were you once known as Bob Marley?” I enquired. (For some reason Marley's image had momentarily flashed across my mind just then....)

I, D, 0, N, T, R, E, M, E, M, B, E, R.

“Do you mind if I call you Bob?”

N, A, M, E, N, 0, T, I, M, P, 0, R, T, A, N, T.

“We need your help. We are in contact with a Level Five entity. His name is Robert Graves. Can you locate his frequency?”

D, 0, Y, 0, U, H, A, V, E, P, E, N, A, N, D, P, A, P, E, R?

I took the pen from Mary and poised myself, ready to receive. At this juncture I must explain that I had been practising with Robert - learning to attune my brainwaves with his - with acceptable results. The Level Six transmission was non-conversational - almost telegraphic - but it was clear.

GREETINGS, BROTHER & SISTER. YOU CALLED ME OVER. IS THERE A PROBLEM I CAN HELP YOU WITH?

I felt that vocalizing the message would reinforce my beam: “Yes. We have a friend on Level Five who needs assistance. His name is Robert Graves.”

AM LOCATING... ROBERT GRAVES... FOUND HIM! HELLO, ROBERT GRAVES. I AM FROM SIX... YES ... YOU ARE A PART OF MY LARGER EXISTENCE. WE NEED TO REINTEGRATE OUR EXPERIENCES BEFORE WE CAN BE A FUNCTIONAL ENTITY.

Meanwhile, Mary had been picking up Robert’s communication with the Level Six entity. He was trying to explain why he was in dalliance with a couple of Level Three entities (Mary and myself):

WE HAVE BEEN HELPING EACH OTHER TO GROW. WE HAVE A BOND OF COSMIC ENERGY BETWEEN US.

There was no contact for several minutes. Mary experienced a wave of depression and went off to the bathroom, I waited in silence. Ah... there it was, the subtle buzz in the mid-brain that indicated Robert’s mental frequency. I picked up the pen again:

THE LEVEL SIX ENTITY YOU CONTACTED WAS MOST HELPFUL. IT IDENTIFIED ITSELF AS PURE COSMIC LOVE AND INSTANTLY I WAS FULFILLED. THAT WAS THE ONLY EXPERIENCE I HAD NEVER HAD UP TILL THIS POINT. THE TOTALLY OVERWHELMING EXPERIENCE OF UNIVERSE-ENCOMPASSING LOVE. INDEED THE WORD ‘LOVE’ HARDLY EXPRESSES THE SENSE OF ABSOLUTE JOY I’M FEELING. THERE IS NO FURTHER NEED TO BE MAUDLIN... WHERE’S MARY? (Just then Mary reappeared at my side) THERE IS SO MUCH... I CANNOT PUT IT INTO WORDS. BUT THE EUPHORIA I FELT EARLIER IS NOTHING COMPARED TO THIS ... HEAVEN! HEAVEN IS...

And I heard, as if from an incomprehensible distance and yet within my very own being, a strangely familiar celestial music. It was grand, gloriously festive, a wedding celebration. Over the music I thought I heard Robert again: MUSIC! THE MUSIC IS THE MUSE ON LEVEL SIX!

It took Mary and me more than a few days to get readjusted to the routine business of Level Three living. The world of laundry, landlords, and screaming lorries.

We hardly missed Robert, of course. Robert was the delicious tirgling, the electrifying blissfulness emanating from our mid-brains right down to our toes. We only had to think of Robert - and there Robert was. Whenever we dangled our orbs - as Robert puts it - we only had to ask: “Robert, are you with us?”

And the pendulum would spin round weightlessly: YES! YES! YES!

But, of course, we missed Robert Graves the poet and his lyrical eloquence. We missed his snide asides on Wordsworth:

HOW COULD A CLOUD POSSIBLY FEEL LONELINESS? THIS IS A CONDITION SPECIFICALLY APPLIED TO THE HUMAN SPECIES BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING OTHER THAN THEMSELVES AS HAVING RELEVANCE. WW OBVIOUSLY CONSIDERED HIMSELF TO BE THE CENTER OF HIS UNIVERSE. NO WONDER HE WAS LONELY.

No matter. The verbal Robert lives on between covers. We only need to dip into any of his books, though we may prefer to linger, to savor that divinely inspired aspect of his erstwhile being.

30 November 1989