Chapter - 19. Epilogue
I had begun my detox and was down to virtually nil. My system must have been saturated as withdrawall wasn't to fully kick in for another week. I had stayed with Lipton. Regained sanity. Enjoyed the beautiful countryside round Leominster. I left Frome and my business in a psychotic condition. I apologise for anyone I offended, particularly clients and work colleagues. I had become quite ill from drugs and only by engineering a madness and irresponsibility could I ever hope to escape my addictions. Each year I wanted to stop but an endless flow of good work and financial responsibility meant I could never take sufficient time out to undergo a proper recovery. At best I would take a fortnight to sellotape together breakages then return to battle on. A year is needed, more sometimes, to reprogramme habits built up over decades. But I was close to death. Increasingly careless. I believe I would not be here had I continued.
With most drug freinds there is only the drugs you have in common. With Lipton our interests were often shared. We had also found our freindship transcended drugs. I think we always knew that but until you are straight you can never be sure. I had abandoned my business despite having work. Burnt bridges. Addiction encompasses all you do. To escape you must change even things that seem unrelated. Whilst making furniture I had always done some drug or drank a lot. The two, like it or not we're entwined. It was my pride and joy, from where I gained respect and self respect. But I had to abandon it to be safe. This maybe hard for some to understand but association with the oddest of things triggers relapse. Certain roads, certain people, certain books, my whole life including my furniture business reminded me of drugs. I hope one day to refind a way to make that doesn't trigger habitual behaviour patterns. In truth, I had become very disillusioned with the designer maker movement. The early days of the seventies; John Makepeace, Rupert Williamson, Fred Baier, Jeremy Broun, Alan Peters and a few others had inspired me, each had their own distinct style. The generation that followed took fine making to an extreme. An obsession and lost sight of the bigger picture. Over crafting is a kind of poor or bad craftsmanship. Betty Norburys series of books and exhibitions proudly advanced the idea that design was subjective, the work promoted chosen only on quality of making. The colleges steered a generation to look inward and a homogenisation took place. Further, Internet forums, discussion groups, be they paedophiles, gamekeepers or furniture makers form sealed communities where value systems can grow perverse. Away from the everyday chance meetings of the real world, where values are questioned, these groups grow deeper into perversity and obsession. I felt my work had no place here amongst those of my peers on a quite different journey. I needed to escape.
I didn't do it as well as I could. I insulted clients, other makers, but I was mad and fighting for my life.
After liptons I went to leeds. Walking in my old stomping ground was grounding. I stayed with one of my oldest and dearest freinds. He too has had substance issues blight his life. It was through the self awareness from the new lysergics that I was able to see what I had become. These are sacramental substances. The basis of my shamanic religion. It was where I began with drugs. I abandoned them in my teens. Thirty years later, having struggled with depression and addictions for years I discovered AL -LAD and to a lesser import 1p-LSD. These are both less demanding than LSD25. Through a few trips I was able to see myself. See what I had become. These are not to be confused with other drugs. No one need take them often.my last trip was two months ago and I am still working out all it meant. Maybe down to the low levels of endorphins or GABA from my early withdrawall something happened that I have never experienced before.
I had had profound insights in my teens were I took somewhere in the region of 1000 mushroom trips and 70 odd LSD trips. Yet only a dozen had I managed to overcome the anxiety and fully let myself be taken.
After a thirty year hiatus I found new more advanced lysergics were now being created at the top end of the research chemical market. LSZ sounded exciting so I tried this. It was pleasant, u stressful but not mind blowing. Then I tried AL -LAD. First time I compared it to acid. But it takes a while to learn a new drug, to throw off preconceptions, to stop comparing. Seldom is a first experience with any drug revealing. You don't know what to look for, correct dosage, best administration method. It was ultimately to cure my addictions, deliver a religious experience that changed my entire outlook on everything. Sadly now illegal, banded in blindly with other drugs.
I have not taken it since nor feel yet ready to such was its total inversion of all my fixed points of belief. I had been to a freinds party and three of us, old and trusted freinds drifted off. Two of us took AL-LAD. My freind is agrophobic but I find it hard to remain indoors. It was a lovely evening so me and chris took my dog to the woods. I was enjoying a strong trip in total relaxation. Zero anxiety. Suddenly this experience expanded tenfold and I lost any sense of myself as an individual. I had read Peter Russell's ideas on consiousness but wasn't thinking of these ideas. I became one with the planet. I underwent ego loss, loss of self. I became first part of the trees, then their underground root base, I became lost and at one with the molecules that make up the soil. My consiousness blended with everything. I could be the river, a particle of water, a wave or ripple, a stone or fish. The plants were me. The trees were me. I could be anywhere. Standing, or rather disembodied, looking down from high above. Or enter any part. I saw how everything connected, that it was all consious and I was a part of that consiousness.
For two years I had read neuroscience. Psychology. How the mind was emergent from brain. I took a materialist view. Yet this experience showed that this may not be so. Still I struggle to accept this. That consiousness is in and of everything. That there is no individual self. No seperation.
This is utterly contradictory to all I once believed. Still I struggle to accomodate this learning. This religious experience has changed everything for me.
I feel that this substance could cause a paradigm shift in human consiousness. Many will fear to take it but it is no test, like acid. I have never had a worried moment on it. The freedom to let your mind be taken, be shown this higher truth renders all competitive machinations a joke. We are not seperate. Individuality is an illusion. For many years the idea of the individual has grown, in politics, in art. Winning, success all seem so silly once this is known.
To put this in to words when all our language presupposes a different paradigm is very difficult. I am evangelical about AL-LAD. LSD, with its soul testing and heaven and hell reputation was never going to cause the evolutionary step forward many sixties idealists hoped for. But this can. When it became illegal the window closed. It is made from LSD, four fifths is lost. LSD is a known product so why would anyone throw away four fifths to create a substance few know of. Psychedelics are the most harmless of drugs. They are also the most illegal. What are the authorities afraid of? Transcendence? The numinous? Or do these substances reveal a truth. Can they unveil reality and show us for a moment how it really is. This is what shamans believe. Reality is hidden from us. Who wouldn't want a peep at the truth.
We still live as though the fixed pillars from which we construct our perspective are external givens. Time, space etc. But as science progresses time becomes no longer fixed but a subjective experience. Matter is proving to be problematic. Quantum mechanics reveals mostly there is little there. It takes an observer for matter to decide whether it is a wave or a particle. We need step back. All we know for certain is we are consious. All we know is through the lens of our consiousness. Our eyes transmit information to the brain that forms a workable approximation of reality. We never see what is there, only constructs made by our brains. It seems wiser to take consiousness as the given and accept our pillars are not so real.
There is a lot of mention of drugs in this story. I would like to draw a clear line between psychedelics and other drugs. Psychedelics generally are taken in microscopic amounts, are rarely poisonous, cause little harm, few deaths, and in recent studies any connection between mental illness and psychedelics has been disproved. Psychedelics are now again being researched; as working cures for long term depression, addiction, PTSD, for terminally ill patients in the acceptance of death. They should be licensed but available.
All other drugs are different. My great mistake in life arose from societies grouping together of drugs. It was psychedelics that interested me as an adolescent. I experimented with other drugs as they were bracketed together. Now, as a recovering addict I find it is once again psychedelics that have cured me. To have lived a life without a significant psychedelic experience is akin to have never fallen in love, never to have made love. Such is the importance of the experience. They are not to be taken lightly. An experienced tutor or shaman should be around. Set and setting are crucial. Still many will be buying trips alongside pills at festivals and enduring problematic taxing experiences. The sooner we have these drugs culturally disconnected from all others, the sooner we can learn as a culture the vastness of what they have to offer. The world steams headlong into destruction as world leaders and business leaders are unable to look from another angle. I see their collective madness, psychedelics could be the key, allowing them to see for themselves. Mankinds greatest hope AL-LAD, DMT.
Lipton remains itinerant living at various sites across Britain. Drug free he still enjoys a drink.
Skree lives in a campervan and moves around the south west and north east. Fully recovered from addiction he still uses ceremonial psychedelics on special occasions.
Jesus lives amongst the homeless and alcoholic around the Glastonbury area usually operating now under a different name.
Jesse Presleys whereabouts remain a closely guarded secret.
Ely Presley is king in waiting and leads jesses legion
Elmer Presley is working on his doctoral thesis on hydroponic strains of marijuana
The Archangel Peter Gabriel is a puff.
Sent from my iPad
Tuesday 30 June 2015
Chapter 18. - Aftermath
Chapter 18. - Aftermath
Our journey had taken six years to complete. We were indeed now able to call ourselves shamans having cured mankind of the evil of Abel. We had climbed great structures. Talked with alcoholic miners. Taken advice from the seriously disturbed. We had tunnelled miles underground. Found hidden places. Met with Jesse Presley, Elvis twin. Danced with his legion. Met an archangel. Upgraded our own status to archangels.mFound the son of man and killed a king.
This had taken its toll. Not only were mental health 'professionals' seriously on our case, trying to force a dull, rubbish truth on us. To be fair Scientologists talk a whole heap of shit, except on one subject. Psychiatry. A doctor may look at broken legs. Come to know the material nature of the complaint. Recognise commonalities and become expert in the field. But the mind does not exist in space. There is no way to measure if a man is mad other than by talking to him. There is no scientific test. You can ask him. We all live with delusions. It is the nature of man. Some are destroying our environment. Our most enthusiastic exponents of morality are a small group of millionaires schooled together, consuming resources at a rate to horrify common man. In nazi Germany, to reject consensus reality could meen death. But brave men stood up. Men and women who said this reality of yours is wrong. Perhaps for some time we were mad. But everything in this book has been true, though I admit much was not real. We choose how colourful we want our lives. Most choose grey.
But our adventures had damaged us. Lipton was alcoholic, heroin dependent and diazepam addicted. I was delusional from ethylphenidate use, addicted to subutex and diclazepam. We had come to a time in our lives when we had to choose. Clean up and endure a years suffering, or continue. We both chose to withdraw.
Lipton slipped off to the Welsh borders, living wild as is his want. Never taking the NHS help of counselling, brainwashing and subutex or methadone. Once he was well I drove off to his site in the Welsh borders. I was going mad. I came off the ethylphenidate here and vastly reduced my subutex. From here I went to leeds where I finally came off all opiates after fifteen odd years. My final rattle taking place back in Frome.
Recovery is long. The painful part is relatively short but a year of low endorphins means depression, tiredness and a lack of motivation. Without the manic episodes, both natural and drug induced we would never have done the things we did. Now, life can seem dull. Often I have days wondering is it worth it being straight. It's certainly less fun.
Free of drugs and alcohol leaves a vacuum. Some fill it with religion, some with study. I have yet to decide. The emptiness remains.
I am grateful to my sister who helped me escape a situation that was killing me. I am grateful to Claire who nursed me through two bouts of severe psychosis. I am grateful to Lipton for coming with me. But more than that I am grateful he gave me somewhere to run to. His haven in green valleys. He showed me ancient sites, fed me, while I was recovering. I am grateful to karen for giving me an Internet freind who never judged me, always supported me, boosted my confidence when low. Then to Dean, who looked after me too. I owe him. I owe them all. Once I am fully well I will repay them. They saved my life.
Looking back I see the psychoses for what they were, however, during them they were as real as any other reality. Some parts were much better than normal reality. It wasn't my fear or desire to be in tune with others but a growing awareness that I was upsetting people. I felt party to greater spiritual truths. At times whilst paranoid I became quite rude. For this I apologise. There is a flip side. People who rejected me, who couldn't see beneath the illness. I pity these people.
It was a choice to some degree. Do we choose what we believe? I'm not sure we can. That would take a homunculus inside our heads. As for free will. The more I learn , the less I believe it exists other than as an illusion. We all play narratives in our heads. We all live delusionally. We all think ourselves heroes. When we succeed it is our talent and hard work, when we fail it is down to circumstance. When others succeed it is down to luck or fortune of birth, when others fail it is because they are lazy, losers. This is now presented as consensus. But how much truth is there in it. We hear rags to riches stories, of how a person born poor overcomes all lifes hurdles to rise to the top. It is then said this means anyone can. This is clearly not true. These people are by nature the exceptions. To blame a person for their nature, their illness, their depression or mania is the same as blaming someone for the colour of their skin. Addicts are frustrating. But shouting at an addict to try get them to pull themselves together is no different to shouting at a schizophrenic to stop being weird, or a man with broken legs to walk properly.
Yet this is the current conservative narrative. As the planets resources become depleted, the rich consume more. Those on benefits consume little. They deserve our respect. They are the good, not the rich and greedy. And to blame them for their predicament is plain stupid, evil even.
Though I joke about Christ I was born of a Christian mother and much of my moral sensibility comes from Christs teachings. Though I believe he existed I believe he was a man. I believe in his views on bankers. I believe in forgiveness being the only way to find peace. I believe that he abandoned work to spread his beliefs about a none materialist way of life being more spiritually rewarding. Christianity has become overtaken, certainly in many towns as a bourgeoise hobby. Despite his teachings those who most loudly proclaim their allegiance to Christ drive to church in big cars. Just the other day whilst walking my dog through the churchyard I saw a vicar in a top range four by four. I couldn't help but say, 'you'll have trouble driving that through the eye of a needle.' Never have his philosophies and poverty cult been more necessary. True Christians have my utmost respect. To help the misguided vicar on his stairway to heaven I slashed all four tyres, stoved in the windscreen with a half Charlie and scratched crucifixes in to the paintwork. Such is our mission to save Christians. Burglars should always take note of Sunday services schedule. Liberate their cash and possessions that are holding them back from entry in to heaven whilst they are at church. Returning home they will see their prayers answered and leep with joy. It is only once freed of material wealth that their God will accept them in to his house. Think like a dentist. Pull out the rotten tooth. Yes it will hurt but in the long run they'll thank you for your altruism.
All the stories are true though elements weren't always real. Some events are entirely fictional. We climbed many structures in the days before the term Urban Exploration had been coined. We walked many miles underground exploring the tunnels around our area. Some of how this was done has been changed for legal reasons. Some names have been changed but most characters exist. Only real action men were used and abused, never cheaper imitations.
Sent from my iPad
Our journey had taken six years to complete. We were indeed now able to call ourselves shamans having cured mankind of the evil of Abel. We had climbed great structures. Talked with alcoholic miners. Taken advice from the seriously disturbed. We had tunnelled miles underground. Found hidden places. Met with Jesse Presley, Elvis twin. Danced with his legion. Met an archangel. Upgraded our own status to archangels.mFound the son of man and killed a king.
This had taken its toll. Not only were mental health 'professionals' seriously on our case, trying to force a dull, rubbish truth on us. To be fair Scientologists talk a whole heap of shit, except on one subject. Psychiatry. A doctor may look at broken legs. Come to know the material nature of the complaint. Recognise commonalities and become expert in the field. But the mind does not exist in space. There is no way to measure if a man is mad other than by talking to him. There is no scientific test. You can ask him. We all live with delusions. It is the nature of man. Some are destroying our environment. Our most enthusiastic exponents of morality are a small group of millionaires schooled together, consuming resources at a rate to horrify common man. In nazi Germany, to reject consensus reality could meen death. But brave men stood up. Men and women who said this reality of yours is wrong. Perhaps for some time we were mad. But everything in this book has been true, though I admit much was not real. We choose how colourful we want our lives. Most choose grey.
But our adventures had damaged us. Lipton was alcoholic, heroin dependent and diazepam addicted. I was delusional from ethylphenidate use, addicted to subutex and diclazepam. We had come to a time in our lives when we had to choose. Clean up and endure a years suffering, or continue. We both chose to withdraw.
Lipton slipped off to the Welsh borders, living wild as is his want. Never taking the NHS help of counselling, brainwashing and subutex or methadone. Once he was well I drove off to his site in the Welsh borders. I was going mad. I came off the ethylphenidate here and vastly reduced my subutex. From here I went to leeds where I finally came off all opiates after fifteen odd years. My final rattle taking place back in Frome.
Recovery is long. The painful part is relatively short but a year of low endorphins means depression, tiredness and a lack of motivation. Without the manic episodes, both natural and drug induced we would never have done the things we did. Now, life can seem dull. Often I have days wondering is it worth it being straight. It's certainly less fun.
Free of drugs and alcohol leaves a vacuum. Some fill it with religion, some with study. I have yet to decide. The emptiness remains.
I am grateful to my sister who helped me escape a situation that was killing me. I am grateful to Claire who nursed me through two bouts of severe psychosis. I am grateful to Lipton for coming with me. But more than that I am grateful he gave me somewhere to run to. His haven in green valleys. He showed me ancient sites, fed me, while I was recovering. I am grateful to karen for giving me an Internet freind who never judged me, always supported me, boosted my confidence when low. Then to Dean, who looked after me too. I owe him. I owe them all. Once I am fully well I will repay them. They saved my life.
Looking back I see the psychoses for what they were, however, during them they were as real as any other reality. Some parts were much better than normal reality. It wasn't my fear or desire to be in tune with others but a growing awareness that I was upsetting people. I felt party to greater spiritual truths. At times whilst paranoid I became quite rude. For this I apologise. There is a flip side. People who rejected me, who couldn't see beneath the illness. I pity these people.
It was a choice to some degree. Do we choose what we believe? I'm not sure we can. That would take a homunculus inside our heads. As for free will. The more I learn , the less I believe it exists other than as an illusion. We all play narratives in our heads. We all live delusionally. We all think ourselves heroes. When we succeed it is our talent and hard work, when we fail it is down to circumstance. When others succeed it is down to luck or fortune of birth, when others fail it is because they are lazy, losers. This is now presented as consensus. But how much truth is there in it. We hear rags to riches stories, of how a person born poor overcomes all lifes hurdles to rise to the top. It is then said this means anyone can. This is clearly not true. These people are by nature the exceptions. To blame a person for their nature, their illness, their depression or mania is the same as blaming someone for the colour of their skin. Addicts are frustrating. But shouting at an addict to try get them to pull themselves together is no different to shouting at a schizophrenic to stop being weird, or a man with broken legs to walk properly.
Yet this is the current conservative narrative. As the planets resources become depleted, the rich consume more. Those on benefits consume little. They deserve our respect. They are the good, not the rich and greedy. And to blame them for their predicament is plain stupid, evil even.
Though I joke about Christ I was born of a Christian mother and much of my moral sensibility comes from Christs teachings. Though I believe he existed I believe he was a man. I believe in his views on bankers. I believe in forgiveness being the only way to find peace. I believe that he abandoned work to spread his beliefs about a none materialist way of life being more spiritually rewarding. Christianity has become overtaken, certainly in many towns as a bourgeoise hobby. Despite his teachings those who most loudly proclaim their allegiance to Christ drive to church in big cars. Just the other day whilst walking my dog through the churchyard I saw a vicar in a top range four by four. I couldn't help but say, 'you'll have trouble driving that through the eye of a needle.' Never have his philosophies and poverty cult been more necessary. True Christians have my utmost respect. To help the misguided vicar on his stairway to heaven I slashed all four tyres, stoved in the windscreen with a half Charlie and scratched crucifixes in to the paintwork. Such is our mission to save Christians. Burglars should always take note of Sunday services schedule. Liberate their cash and possessions that are holding them back from entry in to heaven whilst they are at church. Returning home they will see their prayers answered and leep with joy. It is only once freed of material wealth that their God will accept them in to his house. Think like a dentist. Pull out the rotten tooth. Yes it will hurt but in the long run they'll thank you for your altruism.
All the stories are true though elements weren't always real. Some events are entirely fictional. We climbed many structures in the days before the term Urban Exploration had been coined. We walked many miles underground exploring the tunnels around our area. Some of how this was done has been changed for legal reasons. Some names have been changed but most characters exist. Only real action men were used and abused, never cheaper imitations.
Sent from my iPad
Chapter 17 - The Eclipse; Abels Last Stand
Chapter 17 - The Eclipse; Abels Last Stand
Liptons maths was barely needed. Drawing a straight ley line through our two previous meetings with Abel, through Exmoors Pitt, across Challice Hill and the tor, crossed Cley Hill. This is where more UFO sightings are made than anywhere else in Britain, perhaps the world. An ancient site variously used by Bronze Age people, sculpted to an Iron Age hill fort and throughout history by various other cultures it stands, alien to its landscape between Warminster and Frome. A sudden pair of hills on a otherwise rolling plane. A place where Mystics commune. This time we would meet Abel on our turf. We knew its shape, the Iron Age hill fort defences, the secondary mounds behind, hidden from the road. Here was where our last stand would be made.
Over the month of our murder mission we had been fuelled by the most powerful yet corrosive substance I have known. First time I tried ethylphenidate I had such heartburn from oral roa I could not contain the pain. Sold as a research chemical this substance became very popular. Once found, however, it's sweet spot, the correct dose for an individual, it was, sensation wise far superior to amphetamine. More like cocaine but lasting several hours. Snorted, I single line could leave ones nostril scabbed and running for weeks. Many took to plugging the drug. Mucous membranes inside the anus take the drug to the system as swiftly as insuffation but if the damage to the nostril was anything to go by the internal damage must be similar. God only knows what inspired our intra veinous use. Most Internet forums suggested this was terribly dangerous as it is. Yet, the odd psychonaut was experimenting. Methylphenidate is Ritalin, the ADHD drug given to children. However it's ethyl sister was extremely corrosive. Various types flooded the Internet market, first powder, then crystal, then glass, then snowball rock. All, to a greater or lesser degree, had a three way effect as a dopamine, neuradrenaline and serotonin re uptake inhibition. The purity of the product was in the 90% region, usually claimed 99% purity, often true, though whatever cleaning processes involved varied. One felt powerful. Euphoric. Fearless.
Injecting in to the vein was the most dangerous drug administration I have ever undertaken and also the most powerful rush. It left you unable to move for fear of heart attack. Unable to speak such was its magnitude. But once assimilated a human could feel god like. It was this period that stopped my drug experimenting. God only knows what damage I did. My body still carries scars. Smoother, once levelled off, after the initial rush, than speed it left one with boundless energy. Able to carry out any task indefinitely. My habit lasted three months before I escaped for my shamanic retreat.
Never do what we did. It will either kill you or shorten your life. Years of experimentation have hardened us. Our shamanic powers can heal ourselves, given time. Several times I thought I had killed myself. People who witnessed the aftermath say I looked like a stroke victim. Yet we had to save mankind. Our deaths were unimportant. If it took this extreme measure to kill Abel then we were duty bound, under oath to take whatever meens. Think of World War II RAF pilots, knowing only half would survive, entering the skies to destroy the nazi menace. Ours was a mission of equal importance. Amongst our mates, only Jesus understood. He had given up his life for man. We may need to too.
The eclipse was only partial yet some 75%. Light would dim, just as darkness fell in daytime as Jesus crucifixion took place. The first touch of planetary crossing was to be 8 am. Fullest at 9.30.
The previous night Lipton and I prepared. We had no AL -LAD opting for the new 1p-LSD. It's colder whiteness gave a silver, religious gleam to everything. A more Christian feel. Though shamans we had JC on side. Jesse would know of our final stand. Photographing every opening we sent messages to him. Pleading for Ely to join us. Any intervention he could provide. After injecting ethylphenidate we spent two hours in prayer, as Jesus had told us. We had no plan. No guaruntee Abel would show. Yet these moments of power are rare. If we could not summon up this devil in disguise at Cley Hill during eclipse we were not able to claim we were shamans, never mind the archangel status Jesse had promised us. Jesus hadn't mentioned this but he seemed quite settled, having little truck with his father who, suffering clinical depression, abandonment of those whose worship had grown perverted. His message about the folly of materialism had all but vanished. Mankind wanted cars, watches, iPads, over crafted furniture, smart phones, and their hunger for growth and material excess was causing the extinction of all other life forms. Some hung on, rats, cockroaches, flies but many of his wonders were being destroyed by western mans eternal material hunger. God, now only had truck with isolated tribes. Cultures still existed untouched. It was here the big guy kept his faith in man. This disease of greed wasn't endemic. Not inherent to all cultures. Some peoples managed cyclic, animal lives, harmonious to their environment. Yet western man, having arrogantly dreamed their minds could transcend their bodies, now believed, as a life form, they could transcend environment. This ludicrous notion had spread. Any animal, any life form on earth was an expression of its environment. To seperate the two was to seperate soul from body, mind from flesh. But western man was doomed. Our duty was to stop Abel. But not for these fucking bastards. No, our duty was to the Amazonian tribes. The south sea islanders. Once Abel had destroyed all western women through his gyrations of orgasmosis, a power to crank up their climax to euphoric death, he would be off for mans hidden secrets. Those special people's, few and hidden who had avoided materialism. We cared not for the straights. They'd plagued our lives. But once at peak power our sole representatives, these few tribes still able to show man a worthy animal. Abel would draw no distinction. Elvis was his God and Elvis took his pick of women. Freinds wives, thirteen year olds. So too Abels boundaries weren't existent.
To prevent heart attacks we sedated with benzos at 4am. Took final hits of ethyl, loaded up our 1p-LSD and a whole bunch of kit as before. Nets, ropes, lassoed, bolas es, knives, rounders bats and liptons favourite. A three foot staff with his samurai sword blade attached to its end. I took my trusty estwing hammer and hatchet, two knives for close combat, and my samurai sword, hungry for demon blood.
Tooled up and fired by supernatural energies delivered from the ethylphenidate, sculpted by benzos and special brew, we were out to kill or die trying. There was only a single van as we arrived in the car park at 7am though some 200 people came out that day. From Druids, to students, hippies to telescope laden astronomers, crusty Mystics, to shamans. The sole common thread was an interest in the eclipse. It struck me that, despite the diversity of people, not a single knobhead came to Cley Hill that day. Where else, in any area of ones life can one claim that.
First we ascended the hill, checking out the hiding spots, the weather sculpted Iron Age fortifications. Patches of brush, the odd tree. The secondary lower mound that backs on to a small forest. We knew the area but reacquainted ourselves for any eventuality. As slowly people assembled, the area so large, it lost the 200 in to small groups, each seeking privacy for their own reasons.
Kneeling down to say a final prayer I looked to Lipton. 'Are you ready for this?', liptons eyes shone brighter than they had ever done. 'I am most ready, bring us death or bring us glory.' We dropped 400ug of the LSD at 7.45, timing it to peak around eclipse summit.
A brooding sky precluded our sight of the early sun. The whole morning sky never grew from those blue, grey, black bruised flesh shades yet patches were thinning.
Having surveyed the ground for the final battle. Confident in as much as we could do no more, we retreated in to the woods by the secondary hill. Sat by a gorse tree we saw a filthy looking crusty. 'I know that cunt,' Lipton enthusiastically Stated. Jesus was there. Fucking beauty.
'I fucking knew you'd not let us down.' ' Would I miss a day like this fucker?' He replied, with his warm Palestinian smile.
'Crack the fucking ethyl then, you tight cunts. Been dieing to try this fucker out for ages.'
'Its corrosive, mate, you do know how damaging it is?'
'Look, if crucifixion couldn't do me in I doubt your fucking powders will. Besides, I'd be back up before you know it.'
Opening our rucksacks we got out a spoon, tipped a small 100mg in. Jesus just over rode our concerns, 'give it fucking here.' Tipping a gramme in we passed awed glances. A certain death dig for us mortals, seasoned or not.
'Your shout, JC. Hell of a hit your doing, mind.'
'Look boys, if I need your advice I'll fucking ask.'
Gathering dew from the trees and grass he proceeded to cook up his almighty hit. Passing him my pin, he dropped in a torn off piece of fag filter and drew the syrup up in to the syringe.
Looking at his arms, fucked up by abuse and stigmata from large nails in both palms and wrists it was clear we need not worry. His undernourished arms showed large protruding surface veins. Wrapping his rags to tourniquet his arm seemed unnecessary. Hitting vein he drew back red wine blood that spiralled with the clear fluid, before plunging home his hit.
Indeed, in a horrific fit christs face distorted, his heart was failing. Seizures ripped through his fragile frame. His eyes rolled up beyond his sockets as his body contorted before collapsing back on to the grass.
Feeling for a pulse or any air from his nostrils Lipton confirmed. 'Fucking hell, the cunts gone over. He's dead. I knew we should have stopped him. Now it's just us two against that hell spawn. We are fucked, Skree, fucked!'
A minute of mourning and tears followed. Our spirits crushed. Then his shrouded corpse began to stir. Sitting up confused the son of God shook his head. He was resurrecting.
'Jesus Christ!' The lamb of god exclaimed as the powerful rush hit home. 'That hit the fucking spot. Now lads, let's sort out this demon of yours.'
Never let it be said Jesus is a light weight when it comes to drink or drugs. Me and Lipton exchanged a glance that silently said, this guys a fucking mentalist.
We began our return to the summit to pick our spot.
'He's travelling ariel, he's bound to hit peak eclipse.' Jesus told us. He seemed totally unphased by his recent death.
'You ok, JC.?'
'Course, lads. No probs. nice up there, mind, white light and that. Angels and shit, you know.'
Most of those drawn to the eclipse had sought high spots leaving the hollow of the hill fort centre for our dark mission. We found some cover as the passing of the planetary alignment began. Across the area, women began to gasp and moan. Some reaching loud climax. He was on his way.
As the day darkened, clouds opened up in breif windows revealing the sacred eclipse. Fortifying ourselves with Jesus free wine we waited.
'Were going to have to take this one as it comes. He'll know we are waiting.' I said, fear prickling my skin.
'Chill out, knobhead. It'll be reet.' Jesus reassured us.
'What, like last time. You fucking legged it.' Lipton unhelpfully added.
'Just chill,' and to be fair as the acid took hold, whether it was Jesus chilled out vibes or the wine we did calm. I recalled from my boxing days, the walk to the ring, after vomiting in the changing room was terrifying, yet once in the ring, realisation that there is no way out, a calm would descend on me. All bar my opponent would disappear from my consiousness. It was a calm of the condemned.
Our hillock and bushes formed a fragile shield for us to look down in to the hollowed out center. A natural arena for battle.
As eclipse approached, we scattered our various weapons around the site, hidden in rabbit scrapes, tucked in holes. By now most men had seemingly succumbed to a whirring from the air. All females by now were fully lost in sensory joy, now the men folk too were feeling a stirring in their loins.
'Dirty bastard,' Jesus said, we all looked down embarrassed at our trouser bulges. 'Think of church, politicians, Pythagoras anything you don't connect to sex.'
Forcing our minds to calm our erections took deep meditation skills but all three of us were flaccid as the whirring from Abels powerful gyroscopic motion turned from auditory noise to airborne vibrations.
As the sexually distracted tourists looked to the eclipse assuming earth powers, aliens or God was at work, we saw Abels spinning form tearing towards us from further right. His eyes, red coals of hatred, hot sparks of burning metal spitting from his centrifugal force. Passing overhead, Lipton threw out his weighted net and brought the vibratory demon worm to earth. Laughing his heat burned off this temporary hinderance. Leaping down as he still struggled I caught him across the jaw with the estwing claw hammer stifling his mocking laugh. Blood and teeth flew from his mouth. Though, before two seconds were up Abels smile returned. Eyes glowing in anger. Following through Lipton charged down swinging samurai blade in to Abels shoulder, though wounded he sprayed molten metal forcing us back as speckled wounds and sores formed on all open skin. In a hip flick move his gyratory motor kicked in and he was beneath soil before we could do more.
Jesus looked on, still wasted from his monster ethyl hit. Swigging from his goatskin wine sack. ' He'll be back. We must prepare.'
Hammering posts around the hollows rim we worked fast. Jesus got stuck in too, working at three times the speed of a normal man. From these we rigged ropes forming a stronger net, a spiders web to catch this Lord of flies.
'Cook us up another hit, lads,' Jesus asked. Now, he'd been free with the wine but a, we could do without him dieing again on us and b, we only had about three grammes left. Seeing our mutual reticence, Jesus said, 'not for me knobheads, I'm sworn to none violence but if you two can get him still I'm sure I can give him a dig to spin him in to orbit. '
So, the whole three g's we had remaining were cooked up filling two two mil barrel syringes. Jesus capped and pocketed the works. Lipton looked at me suspiciously and yes, I too had trepidation after his mammoth hit earlier. But if you can't trust Christ, then who the hell can you trust. So we shrugged. We might be dead soon anyway.
Three stoned looking hippies strolled over. At first irritated and needing no onlookers we said, 'you're better off for the eclipse over there?'. Looking more closely it became clear how white skinned they were. The dumbest offered us his joint. We took a toke or two then Jesus finished it off. Asking the lads to skin another. Gradually it dawned on us. The fractal lights from the acid had confused or blurred with their jesses shrouds of mandala fractal lights.
'Elmer?'
'Yessir, and my two buddies from down under, Esau and Elija, we're well stoned, ' he childishly giggled.
'What are you doing here?'
'Oh, lads, we've been plodding slowly behind you since the Pitt. We want to meet Jesus. Jesse said he can get me smart as Ely, with his magic. I'm done sick of being plumb stupid. Weed helps, mind, fancy a bifter?'
Before me or Lipton could stop this madness, Jesus was straight in, 'fucking right we do, gagging for a smoke,'
Jesus already looked wasted but seemed insatiable. 'What say you share your weed and I get you smarter than a motherfucker.'
Smiling at the deal, Elmer gleamed, 'yessir. Alright we sit on your trampoline to roll em?'
Seeing an explanation involved the murder of his brother we could hardly refuse. So, Elmer, his two underworld stoner buddies and the son of man sat nattering and smoking weed on our improvised demon trap.
'Look, it's you and me, Lipton. That's how it's always been. These lot come and go but we are long distance haulage brothers. Till death or glory.'
'Death or glory!' Lipton replied. Looking across the lip of the hollowed out Iron Age hill fort took us back to the gas silos in Bath. A smile passed between us in memory of our lives, our commitment to adventure and to never, ever lose faith in ones dreams, despite what those who promote greyness in all its forms may try trick you with. We had travelled together, through different dimensions, met archangels, underworld empires, even met the son of God, even if he was a bit of a waster hippy come down to it. If we were to die this day it would be a good death. Our policy had been to live each day as though it were our last. This had led us in to all sorts of problems from addiction and now, finally to our deaths. But we had lived. We had seen things common man would never see with his pension schemes, health regimes and insurance plans. Our lives had not been long. But who said life was about quantity? We had lived as free shamans and now may die as such. 'Jesus said its alright over there, bright white light, overwhelming love, it's no big deal, eh?' 'Nah, fuck it. I don't want someone wiping my arse or forgetting who I am anyway.'
'Lets do it!'
The whirring beneath the earth began as a hum, he'd gone deep. Slowly it built. Me and Lipton were armed. He'd reclaimed his long stem samurai sword and bolas whilst I'd stuck to claw hammer and long bladed knife. The stoners didn't become aware and pull themselves together from their stoned giggling till the ground began vibrating. The glow of gyratory friction and the stench of burning metal rose from Abels burrow hole as steam and smoke announced his imminent return.
Dropping down below the net we sought to inflict damage before Abel could see us. Swinging his bolas at speed, Lipton took a deep breathe, simultaneous to mine. In a torrent of hot metal sparks Abel shot to earth. I caught his temple a hard estwing blow as liptons blade ran through his shoulder. Slashing ing his face with my knife Abel through me backward with his good arm. Liptons bolas tied his legs, inhibiting gyration.
'Stone me! It's our Huckleberry, what's he all steamed up about.' Elmer proclaimed as he and his freak brothers lost purchase falling in a heap on to the gyroscopic orgasmatron. Suddenly, resurrecting himself from his cannabis haze, the lamb of god dived in. First needle pierced jugular, second he thrust in to the abominations groin. Abel flicked his hips as only a Presley can throwing JC to the side. Once again he'd only got his job half finished. Needing no prompt Lipton accurately jabbed his sword handle it the works in Abels neck whilst I swung my hammer to plunge the double ethyl whammy home.
Freezing for a second as the chemicals flooded his blood Abels eyes glowed brighter. His gyrations grew strong pushing us all to the hill fort sides as centrifugal force built. As the ethylphenidate took hold Abel went in to overdrive. The heat from his gyroscopic supernova pushed us back. Trying to rise in to the air Abel shot skyward only to find his path impeded by our rope trap. Hitting white hot his body began to break and crack. Metal chunks, hot and heavy flew off him as his death roar deafened all around. His final bursts of crippling magnesium flame fluttered as grey ash settled. No body remained. Abel was dead.
'What an extraordinary phenomena, such gyroscopic magnitude supplemented with phenidate overdose clearly leads to over gyration and super nova. Never liked young Abel to be honest, anyway.' Said the newly intelligent Elmer. 'We may as well use his burrow to get back to Jesse though. I'd like to give you my sincerest thanks, Mr Christ. I feel truly splendid. And to you two gentleman I'll provide a gleaming report to my father. Come on then boys, let's get on our way.'
And simple as that, Elmer left.
Scorched and bloodied we looked to Jesus who was skinning up another doobie for himself from the subterranian weed stash he'd earned. 'What, like?'
'Jesus, thanks for all your help. Any chance of some wine to take the edge of the ethyl acid combo', ' no probs lads,' and a vast selection of new and old world wines appeared. We drank deep and long.
From our rucksacks we produced our action men. Perhaps our last two. Liptons scuba diver looked ready for the drop. My Africa corp also prepared. We checked their dress was smart. Spoke to them, our prayers of absolution. As a sign of our bond we tied their hands together. Bound forever. Then together dropped them down Abels burrowed hole. Together they would face any adventure. Or hit Elmer, Esau and Elija if they hadn't made it down fast enough.
After dismantling our trap and loading up our rucksacks, selecting only the finest of Jesus stash, we looked around the hill. Husbands and boyfriends led their partners down the hill. Some carried them in their arms, such was the afterglow of Abels ungodly genital blessing.
Victorious we strode down Cley Hill. Jesus put an arm round each of our shoulders, not so much in brotherly love as support as he was well wrecked and couldn't walk unaided.
We gave the wreckhead son of God a lift back to glastonbury where he sloped off to site, still drinking from his goatskin.
'Some fella!'
'Aye, always shares his shit, mind. I still rate him, I just can't see him getting his religion up and running again.'
'We'll have to look into that, shamans alone may not be enough to save our species. For sure, it's a hell of a responsibility, having the only known, still fully functional religion. We may need their help sometime. I'm going to try help the crusty dosser get it going again.' I felt duty bound after JC had pitched in to help us out.
Bruised and scarred, mentally and physically, both me and Lipton looked fucked.
'Were going to have to sort ourselves out you know.'
'Yep,' Lipton agreed, ' if I want to reach fifty I'm going to have to rattle off all the drugs. I'm heading for the hills, me, my dogs, sleeping bag, tent, fishing rod, snares. I'm off out on me own. I can't put this on anyone.' Lipton had never used medical help for his addictions. In essence a real life ray mears minus the belly. I knew he would slink off like an animal, into the wild, repair himself, suffer in silence, such was his way.
'I've got to change soon. Reshamanise. Get away from psychiatrists and drug workers. They're paid to keep you coming in to validate their jobs. In twelve years all I've got is a prescription that tied me down. Tied me to them. I've read more psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and addiction books than the whole Somerset drug service. Not only that but I've carried out years of field study, from within. I am an expert, they are novices.'
And we did. Lipton headed for the wilds finally pitching up on site in the Welsh borders. I cured myself, rattled my way off opiates, off benzos. Our adventures are not over. Free of our shackles we are stronger. Death or glory.
I hadn't seen him for two years when I joined him on site. The clocks had just turned to British summer time but I arrived in the worst rains they'd had all winter. Welcomed by all there the week picked up. Sunshine brought out spring. Walking through woodland we visited old castles, ancient pagan sites, Viking settlements. After a few weeks I drove off, arranging to join Lipton on a journey in to Wales. No plan as yet. Just our vans, and our clean selves.
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Liptons maths was barely needed. Drawing a straight ley line through our two previous meetings with Abel, through Exmoors Pitt, across Challice Hill and the tor, crossed Cley Hill. This is where more UFO sightings are made than anywhere else in Britain, perhaps the world. An ancient site variously used by Bronze Age people, sculpted to an Iron Age hill fort and throughout history by various other cultures it stands, alien to its landscape between Warminster and Frome. A sudden pair of hills on a otherwise rolling plane. A place where Mystics commune. This time we would meet Abel on our turf. We knew its shape, the Iron Age hill fort defences, the secondary mounds behind, hidden from the road. Here was where our last stand would be made.
Over the month of our murder mission we had been fuelled by the most powerful yet corrosive substance I have known. First time I tried ethylphenidate I had such heartburn from oral roa I could not contain the pain. Sold as a research chemical this substance became very popular. Once found, however, it's sweet spot, the correct dose for an individual, it was, sensation wise far superior to amphetamine. More like cocaine but lasting several hours. Snorted, I single line could leave ones nostril scabbed and running for weeks. Many took to plugging the drug. Mucous membranes inside the anus take the drug to the system as swiftly as insuffation but if the damage to the nostril was anything to go by the internal damage must be similar. God only knows what inspired our intra veinous use. Most Internet forums suggested this was terribly dangerous as it is. Yet, the odd psychonaut was experimenting. Methylphenidate is Ritalin, the ADHD drug given to children. However it's ethyl sister was extremely corrosive. Various types flooded the Internet market, first powder, then crystal, then glass, then snowball rock. All, to a greater or lesser degree, had a three way effect as a dopamine, neuradrenaline and serotonin re uptake inhibition. The purity of the product was in the 90% region, usually claimed 99% purity, often true, though whatever cleaning processes involved varied. One felt powerful. Euphoric. Fearless.
Injecting in to the vein was the most dangerous drug administration I have ever undertaken and also the most powerful rush. It left you unable to move for fear of heart attack. Unable to speak such was its magnitude. But once assimilated a human could feel god like. It was this period that stopped my drug experimenting. God only knows what damage I did. My body still carries scars. Smoother, once levelled off, after the initial rush, than speed it left one with boundless energy. Able to carry out any task indefinitely. My habit lasted three months before I escaped for my shamanic retreat.
Never do what we did. It will either kill you or shorten your life. Years of experimentation have hardened us. Our shamanic powers can heal ourselves, given time. Several times I thought I had killed myself. People who witnessed the aftermath say I looked like a stroke victim. Yet we had to save mankind. Our deaths were unimportant. If it took this extreme measure to kill Abel then we were duty bound, under oath to take whatever meens. Think of World War II RAF pilots, knowing only half would survive, entering the skies to destroy the nazi menace. Ours was a mission of equal importance. Amongst our mates, only Jesus understood. He had given up his life for man. We may need to too.
The eclipse was only partial yet some 75%. Light would dim, just as darkness fell in daytime as Jesus crucifixion took place. The first touch of planetary crossing was to be 8 am. Fullest at 9.30.
The previous night Lipton and I prepared. We had no AL -LAD opting for the new 1p-LSD. It's colder whiteness gave a silver, religious gleam to everything. A more Christian feel. Though shamans we had JC on side. Jesse would know of our final stand. Photographing every opening we sent messages to him. Pleading for Ely to join us. Any intervention he could provide. After injecting ethylphenidate we spent two hours in prayer, as Jesus had told us. We had no plan. No guaruntee Abel would show. Yet these moments of power are rare. If we could not summon up this devil in disguise at Cley Hill during eclipse we were not able to claim we were shamans, never mind the archangel status Jesse had promised us. Jesus hadn't mentioned this but he seemed quite settled, having little truck with his father who, suffering clinical depression, abandonment of those whose worship had grown perverted. His message about the folly of materialism had all but vanished. Mankind wanted cars, watches, iPads, over crafted furniture, smart phones, and their hunger for growth and material excess was causing the extinction of all other life forms. Some hung on, rats, cockroaches, flies but many of his wonders were being destroyed by western mans eternal material hunger. God, now only had truck with isolated tribes. Cultures still existed untouched. It was here the big guy kept his faith in man. This disease of greed wasn't endemic. Not inherent to all cultures. Some peoples managed cyclic, animal lives, harmonious to their environment. Yet western man, having arrogantly dreamed their minds could transcend their bodies, now believed, as a life form, they could transcend environment. This ludicrous notion had spread. Any animal, any life form on earth was an expression of its environment. To seperate the two was to seperate soul from body, mind from flesh. But western man was doomed. Our duty was to stop Abel. But not for these fucking bastards. No, our duty was to the Amazonian tribes. The south sea islanders. Once Abel had destroyed all western women through his gyrations of orgasmosis, a power to crank up their climax to euphoric death, he would be off for mans hidden secrets. Those special people's, few and hidden who had avoided materialism. We cared not for the straights. They'd plagued our lives. But once at peak power our sole representatives, these few tribes still able to show man a worthy animal. Abel would draw no distinction. Elvis was his God and Elvis took his pick of women. Freinds wives, thirteen year olds. So too Abels boundaries weren't existent.
To prevent heart attacks we sedated with benzos at 4am. Took final hits of ethyl, loaded up our 1p-LSD and a whole bunch of kit as before. Nets, ropes, lassoed, bolas es, knives, rounders bats and liptons favourite. A three foot staff with his samurai sword blade attached to its end. I took my trusty estwing hammer and hatchet, two knives for close combat, and my samurai sword, hungry for demon blood.
Tooled up and fired by supernatural energies delivered from the ethylphenidate, sculpted by benzos and special brew, we were out to kill or die trying. There was only a single van as we arrived in the car park at 7am though some 200 people came out that day. From Druids, to students, hippies to telescope laden astronomers, crusty Mystics, to shamans. The sole common thread was an interest in the eclipse. It struck me that, despite the diversity of people, not a single knobhead came to Cley Hill that day. Where else, in any area of ones life can one claim that.
First we ascended the hill, checking out the hiding spots, the weather sculpted Iron Age fortifications. Patches of brush, the odd tree. The secondary lower mound that backs on to a small forest. We knew the area but reacquainted ourselves for any eventuality. As slowly people assembled, the area so large, it lost the 200 in to small groups, each seeking privacy for their own reasons.
Kneeling down to say a final prayer I looked to Lipton. 'Are you ready for this?', liptons eyes shone brighter than they had ever done. 'I am most ready, bring us death or bring us glory.' We dropped 400ug of the LSD at 7.45, timing it to peak around eclipse summit.
A brooding sky precluded our sight of the early sun. The whole morning sky never grew from those blue, grey, black bruised flesh shades yet patches were thinning.
Having surveyed the ground for the final battle. Confident in as much as we could do no more, we retreated in to the woods by the secondary hill. Sat by a gorse tree we saw a filthy looking crusty. 'I know that cunt,' Lipton enthusiastically Stated. Jesus was there. Fucking beauty.
'I fucking knew you'd not let us down.' ' Would I miss a day like this fucker?' He replied, with his warm Palestinian smile.
'Crack the fucking ethyl then, you tight cunts. Been dieing to try this fucker out for ages.'
'Its corrosive, mate, you do know how damaging it is?'
'Look, if crucifixion couldn't do me in I doubt your fucking powders will. Besides, I'd be back up before you know it.'
Opening our rucksacks we got out a spoon, tipped a small 100mg in. Jesus just over rode our concerns, 'give it fucking here.' Tipping a gramme in we passed awed glances. A certain death dig for us mortals, seasoned or not.
'Your shout, JC. Hell of a hit your doing, mind.'
'Look boys, if I need your advice I'll fucking ask.'
Gathering dew from the trees and grass he proceeded to cook up his almighty hit. Passing him my pin, he dropped in a torn off piece of fag filter and drew the syrup up in to the syringe.
Looking at his arms, fucked up by abuse and stigmata from large nails in both palms and wrists it was clear we need not worry. His undernourished arms showed large protruding surface veins. Wrapping his rags to tourniquet his arm seemed unnecessary. Hitting vein he drew back red wine blood that spiralled with the clear fluid, before plunging home his hit.
Indeed, in a horrific fit christs face distorted, his heart was failing. Seizures ripped through his fragile frame. His eyes rolled up beyond his sockets as his body contorted before collapsing back on to the grass.
Feeling for a pulse or any air from his nostrils Lipton confirmed. 'Fucking hell, the cunts gone over. He's dead. I knew we should have stopped him. Now it's just us two against that hell spawn. We are fucked, Skree, fucked!'
A minute of mourning and tears followed. Our spirits crushed. Then his shrouded corpse began to stir. Sitting up confused the son of God shook his head. He was resurrecting.
'Jesus Christ!' The lamb of god exclaimed as the powerful rush hit home. 'That hit the fucking spot. Now lads, let's sort out this demon of yours.'
Never let it be said Jesus is a light weight when it comes to drink or drugs. Me and Lipton exchanged a glance that silently said, this guys a fucking mentalist.
We began our return to the summit to pick our spot.
'He's travelling ariel, he's bound to hit peak eclipse.' Jesus told us. He seemed totally unphased by his recent death.
'You ok, JC.?'
'Course, lads. No probs. nice up there, mind, white light and that. Angels and shit, you know.'
Most of those drawn to the eclipse had sought high spots leaving the hollow of the hill fort centre for our dark mission. We found some cover as the passing of the planetary alignment began. Across the area, women began to gasp and moan. Some reaching loud climax. He was on his way.
As the day darkened, clouds opened up in breif windows revealing the sacred eclipse. Fortifying ourselves with Jesus free wine we waited.
'Were going to have to take this one as it comes. He'll know we are waiting.' I said, fear prickling my skin.
'Chill out, knobhead. It'll be reet.' Jesus reassured us.
'What, like last time. You fucking legged it.' Lipton unhelpfully added.
'Just chill,' and to be fair as the acid took hold, whether it was Jesus chilled out vibes or the wine we did calm. I recalled from my boxing days, the walk to the ring, after vomiting in the changing room was terrifying, yet once in the ring, realisation that there is no way out, a calm would descend on me. All bar my opponent would disappear from my consiousness. It was a calm of the condemned.
Our hillock and bushes formed a fragile shield for us to look down in to the hollowed out center. A natural arena for battle.
As eclipse approached, we scattered our various weapons around the site, hidden in rabbit scrapes, tucked in holes. By now most men had seemingly succumbed to a whirring from the air. All females by now were fully lost in sensory joy, now the men folk too were feeling a stirring in their loins.
'Dirty bastard,' Jesus said, we all looked down embarrassed at our trouser bulges. 'Think of church, politicians, Pythagoras anything you don't connect to sex.'
Forcing our minds to calm our erections took deep meditation skills but all three of us were flaccid as the whirring from Abels powerful gyroscopic motion turned from auditory noise to airborne vibrations.
As the sexually distracted tourists looked to the eclipse assuming earth powers, aliens or God was at work, we saw Abels spinning form tearing towards us from further right. His eyes, red coals of hatred, hot sparks of burning metal spitting from his centrifugal force. Passing overhead, Lipton threw out his weighted net and brought the vibratory demon worm to earth. Laughing his heat burned off this temporary hinderance. Leaping down as he still struggled I caught him across the jaw with the estwing claw hammer stifling his mocking laugh. Blood and teeth flew from his mouth. Though, before two seconds were up Abels smile returned. Eyes glowing in anger. Following through Lipton charged down swinging samurai blade in to Abels shoulder, though wounded he sprayed molten metal forcing us back as speckled wounds and sores formed on all open skin. In a hip flick move his gyratory motor kicked in and he was beneath soil before we could do more.
Jesus looked on, still wasted from his monster ethyl hit. Swigging from his goatskin wine sack. ' He'll be back. We must prepare.'
Hammering posts around the hollows rim we worked fast. Jesus got stuck in too, working at three times the speed of a normal man. From these we rigged ropes forming a stronger net, a spiders web to catch this Lord of flies.
'Cook us up another hit, lads,' Jesus asked. Now, he'd been free with the wine but a, we could do without him dieing again on us and b, we only had about three grammes left. Seeing our mutual reticence, Jesus said, 'not for me knobheads, I'm sworn to none violence but if you two can get him still I'm sure I can give him a dig to spin him in to orbit. '
So, the whole three g's we had remaining were cooked up filling two two mil barrel syringes. Jesus capped and pocketed the works. Lipton looked at me suspiciously and yes, I too had trepidation after his mammoth hit earlier. But if you can't trust Christ, then who the hell can you trust. So we shrugged. We might be dead soon anyway.
Three stoned looking hippies strolled over. At first irritated and needing no onlookers we said, 'you're better off for the eclipse over there?'. Looking more closely it became clear how white skinned they were. The dumbest offered us his joint. We took a toke or two then Jesus finished it off. Asking the lads to skin another. Gradually it dawned on us. The fractal lights from the acid had confused or blurred with their jesses shrouds of mandala fractal lights.
'Elmer?'
'Yessir, and my two buddies from down under, Esau and Elija, we're well stoned, ' he childishly giggled.
'What are you doing here?'
'Oh, lads, we've been plodding slowly behind you since the Pitt. We want to meet Jesus. Jesse said he can get me smart as Ely, with his magic. I'm done sick of being plumb stupid. Weed helps, mind, fancy a bifter?'
Before me or Lipton could stop this madness, Jesus was straight in, 'fucking right we do, gagging for a smoke,'
Jesus already looked wasted but seemed insatiable. 'What say you share your weed and I get you smarter than a motherfucker.'
Smiling at the deal, Elmer gleamed, 'yessir. Alright we sit on your trampoline to roll em?'
Seeing an explanation involved the murder of his brother we could hardly refuse. So, Elmer, his two underworld stoner buddies and the son of man sat nattering and smoking weed on our improvised demon trap.
'Look, it's you and me, Lipton. That's how it's always been. These lot come and go but we are long distance haulage brothers. Till death or glory.'
'Death or glory!' Lipton replied. Looking across the lip of the hollowed out Iron Age hill fort took us back to the gas silos in Bath. A smile passed between us in memory of our lives, our commitment to adventure and to never, ever lose faith in ones dreams, despite what those who promote greyness in all its forms may try trick you with. We had travelled together, through different dimensions, met archangels, underworld empires, even met the son of God, even if he was a bit of a waster hippy come down to it. If we were to die this day it would be a good death. Our policy had been to live each day as though it were our last. This had led us in to all sorts of problems from addiction and now, finally to our deaths. But we had lived. We had seen things common man would never see with his pension schemes, health regimes and insurance plans. Our lives had not been long. But who said life was about quantity? We had lived as free shamans and now may die as such. 'Jesus said its alright over there, bright white light, overwhelming love, it's no big deal, eh?' 'Nah, fuck it. I don't want someone wiping my arse or forgetting who I am anyway.'
'Lets do it!'
The whirring beneath the earth began as a hum, he'd gone deep. Slowly it built. Me and Lipton were armed. He'd reclaimed his long stem samurai sword and bolas whilst I'd stuck to claw hammer and long bladed knife. The stoners didn't become aware and pull themselves together from their stoned giggling till the ground began vibrating. The glow of gyratory friction and the stench of burning metal rose from Abels burrow hole as steam and smoke announced his imminent return.
Dropping down below the net we sought to inflict damage before Abel could see us. Swinging his bolas at speed, Lipton took a deep breathe, simultaneous to mine. In a torrent of hot metal sparks Abel shot to earth. I caught his temple a hard estwing blow as liptons blade ran through his shoulder. Slashing ing his face with my knife Abel through me backward with his good arm. Liptons bolas tied his legs, inhibiting gyration.
'Stone me! It's our Huckleberry, what's he all steamed up about.' Elmer proclaimed as he and his freak brothers lost purchase falling in a heap on to the gyroscopic orgasmatron. Suddenly, resurrecting himself from his cannabis haze, the lamb of god dived in. First needle pierced jugular, second he thrust in to the abominations groin. Abel flicked his hips as only a Presley can throwing JC to the side. Once again he'd only got his job half finished. Needing no prompt Lipton accurately jabbed his sword handle it the works in Abels neck whilst I swung my hammer to plunge the double ethyl whammy home.
Freezing for a second as the chemicals flooded his blood Abels eyes glowed brighter. His gyrations grew strong pushing us all to the hill fort sides as centrifugal force built. As the ethylphenidate took hold Abel went in to overdrive. The heat from his gyroscopic supernova pushed us back. Trying to rise in to the air Abel shot skyward only to find his path impeded by our rope trap. Hitting white hot his body began to break and crack. Metal chunks, hot and heavy flew off him as his death roar deafened all around. His final bursts of crippling magnesium flame fluttered as grey ash settled. No body remained. Abel was dead.
'What an extraordinary phenomena, such gyroscopic magnitude supplemented with phenidate overdose clearly leads to over gyration and super nova. Never liked young Abel to be honest, anyway.' Said the newly intelligent Elmer. 'We may as well use his burrow to get back to Jesse though. I'd like to give you my sincerest thanks, Mr Christ. I feel truly splendid. And to you two gentleman I'll provide a gleaming report to my father. Come on then boys, let's get on our way.'
And simple as that, Elmer left.
Scorched and bloodied we looked to Jesus who was skinning up another doobie for himself from the subterranian weed stash he'd earned. 'What, like?'
'Jesus, thanks for all your help. Any chance of some wine to take the edge of the ethyl acid combo', ' no probs lads,' and a vast selection of new and old world wines appeared. We drank deep and long.
From our rucksacks we produced our action men. Perhaps our last two. Liptons scuba diver looked ready for the drop. My Africa corp also prepared. We checked their dress was smart. Spoke to them, our prayers of absolution. As a sign of our bond we tied their hands together. Bound forever. Then together dropped them down Abels burrowed hole. Together they would face any adventure. Or hit Elmer, Esau and Elija if they hadn't made it down fast enough.
After dismantling our trap and loading up our rucksacks, selecting only the finest of Jesus stash, we looked around the hill. Husbands and boyfriends led their partners down the hill. Some carried them in their arms, such was the afterglow of Abels ungodly genital blessing.
Victorious we strode down Cley Hill. Jesus put an arm round each of our shoulders, not so much in brotherly love as support as he was well wrecked and couldn't walk unaided.
We gave the wreckhead son of God a lift back to glastonbury where he sloped off to site, still drinking from his goatskin.
'Some fella!'
'Aye, always shares his shit, mind. I still rate him, I just can't see him getting his religion up and running again.'
'We'll have to look into that, shamans alone may not be enough to save our species. For sure, it's a hell of a responsibility, having the only known, still fully functional religion. We may need their help sometime. I'm going to try help the crusty dosser get it going again.' I felt duty bound after JC had pitched in to help us out.
Bruised and scarred, mentally and physically, both me and Lipton looked fucked.
'Were going to have to sort ourselves out you know.'
'Yep,' Lipton agreed, ' if I want to reach fifty I'm going to have to rattle off all the drugs. I'm heading for the hills, me, my dogs, sleeping bag, tent, fishing rod, snares. I'm off out on me own. I can't put this on anyone.' Lipton had never used medical help for his addictions. In essence a real life ray mears minus the belly. I knew he would slink off like an animal, into the wild, repair himself, suffer in silence, such was his way.
'I've got to change soon. Reshamanise. Get away from psychiatrists and drug workers. They're paid to keep you coming in to validate their jobs. In twelve years all I've got is a prescription that tied me down. Tied me to them. I've read more psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience and addiction books than the whole Somerset drug service. Not only that but I've carried out years of field study, from within. I am an expert, they are novices.'
And we did. Lipton headed for the wilds finally pitching up on site in the Welsh borders. I cured myself, rattled my way off opiates, off benzos. Our adventures are not over. Free of our shackles we are stronger. Death or glory.
I hadn't seen him for two years when I joined him on site. The clocks had just turned to British summer time but I arrived in the worst rains they'd had all winter. Welcomed by all there the week picked up. Sunshine brought out spring. Walking through woodland we visited old castles, ancient pagan sites, Viking settlements. After a few weeks I drove off, arranging to join Lipton on a journey in to Wales. No plan as yet. Just our vans, and our clean selves.
Sent from my iPad
Monday 22 June 2015
Sunday 21 June 2015
Saturday 20 June 2015
Longevity
Now I'm approaching fifty years of age and the innevitable letter of congratulations from the queen, I am often asked by youths, 'Skree, how come you've managed to live so long when many, most of your generation who played out with you are dead or fooled by insurance and pension schemes or other dementia whilst you remain youthful, fit and lithe as a twenty year old?'.
Well, it's hard to reply as mostly it's intuitive but I would say a few things
A. Stop smoking for a few years every now and again. Give those lungs a break and you'll enjoy it all the more when you start up again.
B. Don't drink everyday. For sure, dull and boring days can be perpetuated indefinitely but have a day off, at least once a week. But you have to ask yourself, is endless life of alcohol free drudgery worth living?
C. Don't stick with the same drug or newspaper everyday. You'll form a habit and develope a myopic world view.
D. Take psychedelic drugs when necessary. This may be as little as once a year. Remember Albert Hoffman discovered LSD and used it throughout his 102 years alive. These, alone, are drugs that enhance and sustain life.
E. Don't put weird shit in your food. No desiccated coconut and never put sultanas in curry
F. People who say things like 'children keep you young,' or ' heroin keeps you young,' are just kidding themselves. Look at them? They look knackered.
G. Always follow the green cross code.
Well, it's hard to reply as mostly it's intuitive but I would say a few things
A. Stop smoking for a few years every now and again. Give those lungs a break and you'll enjoy it all the more when you start up again.
B. Don't drink everyday. For sure, dull and boring days can be perpetuated indefinitely but have a day off, at least once a week. But you have to ask yourself, is endless life of alcohol free drudgery worth living?
C. Don't stick with the same drug or newspaper everyday. You'll form a habit and develope a myopic world view.
D. Take psychedelic drugs when necessary. This may be as little as once a year. Remember Albert Hoffman discovered LSD and used it throughout his 102 years alive. These, alone, are drugs that enhance and sustain life.
E. Don't put weird shit in your food. No desiccated coconut and never put sultanas in curry
F. People who say things like 'children keep you young,' or ' heroin keeps you young,' are just kidding themselves. Look at them? They look knackered.
G. Always follow the green cross code.
Thursday 18 June 2015
Chapter 16 - Pandora's box opened and Jesus Christ
Chapter 16 - Pandora's box opened and Jesus Christ
Having inadvertantly unleashed the demon spawn gyratory nemesis of mankind from the underworld supervision of his ageing father, Jesse Presley, our fear and guilt required focus. We must kill Abel before he could unleash his gyrations of multiplex orgasmosis on the women of the world. Elvis had been banned from the waist down for his tv appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. The government feared the sexual repercussions his moves would inflict on a sexually repressed 1950s American female public could undermine civilisation. Jesse, whose gyratory powers were a full twenty times that of Elvis was far more of a national threat. Government agents had buried him alive to protect the nation. But Jesse had used his hips to burrow deep in to the planet, crossing the ocean to raise a subterranian army to instate himself as the rightful king following his brothers death, on the john. Linking up with teddy boy miners he had nearly taken Britain. His endless underworld rock and roll came close to linking up with the Peace Convoy to usher in a new age of sensual joy. The new Puritanism of Thatchers government had defeated Jesse who opted to rule the underworld. Fuck overworlders, let them enjoy their endless work and search for material goods, pension schemes, insurance cover. Let them enjoy their monotone myopic world view. Jesse and the guys n galls could rock along in endless party. Married to Jane, the twin of science fiction religious gnostic visionary Philip K Dick they raised three sons. Ely the eldest was in the mould of jesse, a natural heir to the throne. His. Gyratory powers were spent in communication with VALIS. Elmer was born plum stupid and spent his time smoking weed with the hedonistic elements of jesses underworld legion. Abel, though, had all the power of the devil himself. Gyratory powers beyond even the might of jesse. He could kill a harem with a swivel hip manoeuvre, he could keep them at climax indefinitely, like the pied piper, he could cause an earthquake of ecstasy as all women hit levels undreamt of while the menfolk could do nothing but stand by. Elvis had been loved above but the burgers and uppers, downers and goddamn traitors saw him a dead king at 42, on the john. Jesse had failed. Abel was spitting nails at the world. More a demon force of hatred for humanity and the Devils hips to deliver a tsunami of simultaneous multiple orgasm that could be cranked from low stimulation right on up to ecstatic death. Such was Abels power. Power tied to a madness born of two generations of subjugation and a belief he was the rightful king. Ely could have his tunnel network, Abel wanted the world.
Lysergics like acid and AL-LAD have 100% tolerance next day. To get full wack you need at least four days, ideally a week to reach the same transcendent heights. We'd been to the Pitt on Exmoor on Tuesday night so we set our sites on Sunday, the earliest we could be certain of raising Abel through shamanic methodology. Where that hell spawn spent those five nights we knew not. All we were certain of was the Holy Thorn at Chalice Hill or the Tor were where he would head. The anti Elvis, king of rock and roll would take the same path as Jesus. Though shamans we be, my God did we pray that week. Christ must listen. After all we'd smashed up over two hundred top range cars during Sunday services over the last year. Our spiritual kinship to him was unquestioned. Jesus packed in his job to drink wine with the homeless just as Lipton drank special brew with the homeless. Who was to say he hadn't stuck around the area, his last official sighting was on the trip he came on with Joseph of aramathea. There's a fuck of a lot of hippies and general spiritual types get drawn to live in GLASTONBURY. Tons of alternative therapy practitioners, crystal shops, the centre of british Druidism. We had a fair old guess that kick ass Jew with the death defying powers would still be around.
The Holy Thorn is of a species not found in Britain, only the Middle East. Joseph had, as the story goes, stabbed his staff in to the ground on Chalice Hill where it took root. Over the years it has had many attacks from the dark forces. From cromwellian new puritans to modern day grey resinheads. Somehow it always survived. Until a couple of years back when the agents of darkness came with chainsaws and wrecked the much loved tree. People still make pilgrimages from all over the world to see its remains that are bedecked in bright decorations that blow in the wind. Several cuttings are known to exist so the lifeline continues. One in GLASTONBURY abbey, another in the Chalice Well. Three others at secret locations.
It was a bright sunlit spring morning that Sunday we set out. The first hot day of the year. Murder puts one in mind of darkness, night time, rain. Yet we were off to kill in broad daylight. Armed with bolas, lassos, speed cuffs, zip ties, axes, knives, swords, Kevlar vests, AL-LAD and a bucket load of hope. We would need luck. We hoped for intervention from Christ, Ely, jesse, anything to give us the edge. We had Elys lowdown on how he could wup him as a boy but boy he was no more. Still, we walked tall. With a fair wind behind us, our shamanic powers and the weight of mankinds survival spurring us on we would kill Abel or die trying. It was our duty. There were no other ends possible to this one.
The drive went swiftly picking up a cockney hitch hiker, David Sedgley on the way. I'd picked him up before and he was a wide boy but worth the entry fee so long as you kept an eye on your wallet. Dropping him off at Worthy Farm he had some gripe over some confiscated stamps he had been selling at GLASTONBURY and was off to have it out with michael eavis.
Swinging through the town we parked up by the sports centre. 300ug AL -LAD should be sufficient to summon up Abel if he was around. After our four blotter trip on Exmoor neither of us wanted to push it a millimetre too far. With heavy rucksacks we crossed over the road and marched up Chalice Hill. The odd crusty mystic was there, practicing whatever spiritual habits they heald dear. The sacrament had not yet taken full effect so we touched the trunk and branches in reverence, muttering shamanic incantations, warning the tree and hill why we were there. Asking their blessing to kill a demon adolescent before all hell broke loose.
We could smell faintly the same burning metal we had at The Pitt but it was carried on the wind. He was close but we'd have to sniff him out. Walking the crest of Chalice Hill we finally were able to look down on the travel,re site at the old Moorlands factory and fields behind. The wind seemed to push us towards the town. A light chanting brought no response so we returned to the Holy Thorn, descended the hill and headed for the Tor.
By now the AL -LAD was working full strength and the spring sun warmed us in approval at our righteous task. As we climbed the hill to the tor we passed all types of spiritual searchers, from christians, Druids to pagans. With each pace the smell of iron smelting grew stronger. Taking in thee views around we discussed tactics. 'He's clearly sat inside the tor waiting for us, but tourists everywhere.' Were we able to kill in broad daylight? ' just time it, we get close, hang around till as few people are there then we charge in, one from either side.'
We could see the women experiencing sensations. Confused boyfriends and husbands glanced suspiciously at wives and partners as they let out involuntary sighs, gasps and moans. 'Oh, my god, yes!' One fit ausy backpacker shouted. Her boyfriend assumed she was in the throes of a religious experience, still, it was hard not to look over, such was her clear joy.
Creeping round, pretending to photograph the view I readied the zip ties for his ankles and positioned myself just to the left of the entrance from the climbing path. Lipton wrapped a length of piano wire round his gloved fingers, ready to garrotte the perverted demon soil sucker. Positioned at the other end. A back pack twat was in there too playing didgeridoo. Collateral damage, I mouthed to Lipton. To be fair one had to wonder how he tolerated the burning metal stench that even tourists stood yards away heald handkerchiefs to mouths to stifle.
After fifteen minutes, the orgasmic girl had to be led down hill. Her legs unable to support her. A quiet moment. Just us, didgeridoo and Abel.
'Now!' We lept in simultaneously. I got a zip tie round his ankles before even catching his eyes as Lipton slipped the garrotte round his throat. His eyes burnt like hot coals in anger as his gyrations through me on to the didgeridoo hippy. 'Fuck off out of here if you value your life!' I yelled and dropping his aboriginal pipe he fled down that hill like mo farah. Lipton wrestled as Abels fingers got under the wire. His gyrations grew stronger causing him to levitate. Lipton squeezed tighter and his burning coal eyes looked about to spring from his skull. His face, normally so white was purple. Gyrating backwards in a move from the bop jesse practiced, dropping a shoulder to touch the floor he dislodged some of liptons pressure. Blood returned to his feet and his ankles snapped the zip tie. Tourists were fleeing the hill as metal sparks sprayed from either entrance. Hip wacking us off we fell and like a sparking orange bullet of molten metal he shot out across the sky. We'd lost him.
Bruised and burnt. We sat opposite each other, heads bowed in defeat again. Tears fell from Lipton, 'so close, I could feel him going.' It was no ones fault. We were on a steep learning curve. To cheer him up I plucked out two special brew cans from my rucksack. 'Think what we've learned. Compare that to the Pitt. We're getting there Lipton. No one could hope to do this first time.'
He nodded. Still disconsolate.
'Alright lads' , the didgeridoo hippy had returned. A Palestinian bloke I now saw, long hair, matted beard but the gentlest smile I have ever seen. 'I was up here, playing my didge when that fucking demon came in, I'm not a fighting man myself, all peace with me and I think my tunes kinda soothed the bastard. His eyes glowed less, any road.'
'What's your name, brother, I'm Skree and yer man with the garrotte, he's Lipton.'
'Jesus Christ, they call me.'
I looked above his head and his halo glowed white and gold. He'd had it turned off earlier so as he got no hassle from tourists. 'Oh, it's a fucking nightmare. Christians! Fucking arseholes, just don't let on to them you've seen me, right. Two thousand years they've been waiting, too lazy to do owt for themselves, waiting for me to show up again to sort it all out for them. That's a lot of pressure on one guy, I can tell you.'
'Me and Lipton are big fans. We go smashing up their cars on Sunday mornings. We're well in to all your shit, you know, poverty, forgiveness, not lending money. We can't do the wine trick or walk on water but we've taken shed loads of psychedelic drugs.'
A warm kinship grew between us as he plucked a bottle of Beaujolais from behind liptons ear, then, without stopping a bottle of Chablis from behind mine.
'Brilliant, you're gonna have to teach us. I can relate to having the saving of mankind hoiked on to your shoulders, jesse, you know him?' , 'Know of him, Elvis underground brother isn't he, never met like.' 'Aye, well we went in search of his empire to join up but he talked us into killing his son.'
Jesus frowned, a bit close to the bone. 'No, it's nowt like you and your old man. This kiddy, the demon lad you were playing didge to, he's as evil as they come. Given chance he's going to kill and take all the females for his own nefarious ends. No more breeding. End of man.'
'Jesus fucking Christ, I should have helped you rather than pegged it. See, I'm none violence mostly. Bankers and loan sharks I don't mind twitting but other cunts, I don't know, I just seem to forgive them, can't help myself.'
'That's no worries mate. You're one of our heroes. This has made our day.' I took a long draft of the fine wine the lamb of god had cracked open. 'Well get another chance. It's not something you can easily do without learning his moves and that. Nearly had the fucker, mind.'
'Fucking right you did lads, he shot past me scared as fuck, I can tell you'
'So, how long you been round this way. '
'Years now, mate. Easy to blend in dressed in rags and beard here. Every cunts a mystic fucker so no one bothers me really.'
We sat and got pissed with Jesus as he kept the wine coming, till well in to the night. We tried to get the transcending death trick out of him but he was t having it. Nor the free wine one. 'You cunts can shoplift from asda, you don't need these tricks. It can get you in to a right heep of shite if you're not careful. One time...' ' Yeah, Jesus, we all know that one. Still, only had you out for 72 hours. That's fucking impressive.'
Jesus just nodded modestly. 'Look lads, next time you try to do Abel, give us a shout. I m not promising owt, as I say I'm none violent, but who knows, I could destract him. Ive got some party tricks never got mentioned in that fat boring book about me. That just covers some of my greatest hits. Ive learned shed loads more since.'
'How do we get in touch? I don't imagine you're one to give out your mobile number.'
'Easy, on your knees, close your eyes, cross your hands. Same as its always been.'
'We thought you and your dad had stopped answering?'
'Well we have, I'm not sorting shit out for rich cunts but you lads. I'll pick up straight away.'
'Thanks Jesus, you are a fucking gent.'
'Aye, top bloke!' Lipton concurred. He was looking worse for the wine, 'always knew you'd be sound, didn't I say Skree, sound cunt that Jesus.'
And there, walking down off the tor, trip fading and very drunk, we put arms round our shoulders in a line. The son of God in the middle. Having the burdon of mankind on a mans shoulders is something you seldom get to share with someone who knows the score.
'You'd best sleep in your van, lads. Crawling with filth round here. Got pulled for not wearing shoes once, tight cunts. And remember, when your ready, give us a shout.'
And with that the Palestinian jewish hippy. One of the all time most powerful Shamans, slipped off in to the night. Heading towards Moorlands traveller site. A quick blast of the halo, and gone.
'Fuck me, what a day, nearly killed Abel and met Jesus.'
'They don't come much better than that.'
Crawling into our sleeping bags a calmness overcame us and the most peaceful of sleeps took us under.
Sent from my iPad
Having inadvertantly unleashed the demon spawn gyratory nemesis of mankind from the underworld supervision of his ageing father, Jesse Presley, our fear and guilt required focus. We must kill Abel before he could unleash his gyrations of multiplex orgasmosis on the women of the world. Elvis had been banned from the waist down for his tv appearance on the Ed Sullivan show. The government feared the sexual repercussions his moves would inflict on a sexually repressed 1950s American female public could undermine civilisation. Jesse, whose gyratory powers were a full twenty times that of Elvis was far more of a national threat. Government agents had buried him alive to protect the nation. But Jesse had used his hips to burrow deep in to the planet, crossing the ocean to raise a subterranian army to instate himself as the rightful king following his brothers death, on the john. Linking up with teddy boy miners he had nearly taken Britain. His endless underworld rock and roll came close to linking up with the Peace Convoy to usher in a new age of sensual joy. The new Puritanism of Thatchers government had defeated Jesse who opted to rule the underworld. Fuck overworlders, let them enjoy their endless work and search for material goods, pension schemes, insurance cover. Let them enjoy their monotone myopic world view. Jesse and the guys n galls could rock along in endless party. Married to Jane, the twin of science fiction religious gnostic visionary Philip K Dick they raised three sons. Ely the eldest was in the mould of jesse, a natural heir to the throne. His. Gyratory powers were spent in communication with VALIS. Elmer was born plum stupid and spent his time smoking weed with the hedonistic elements of jesses underworld legion. Abel, though, had all the power of the devil himself. Gyratory powers beyond even the might of jesse. He could kill a harem with a swivel hip manoeuvre, he could keep them at climax indefinitely, like the pied piper, he could cause an earthquake of ecstasy as all women hit levels undreamt of while the menfolk could do nothing but stand by. Elvis had been loved above but the burgers and uppers, downers and goddamn traitors saw him a dead king at 42, on the john. Jesse had failed. Abel was spitting nails at the world. More a demon force of hatred for humanity and the Devils hips to deliver a tsunami of simultaneous multiple orgasm that could be cranked from low stimulation right on up to ecstatic death. Such was Abels power. Power tied to a madness born of two generations of subjugation and a belief he was the rightful king. Ely could have his tunnel network, Abel wanted the world.
Lysergics like acid and AL-LAD have 100% tolerance next day. To get full wack you need at least four days, ideally a week to reach the same transcendent heights. We'd been to the Pitt on Exmoor on Tuesday night so we set our sites on Sunday, the earliest we could be certain of raising Abel through shamanic methodology. Where that hell spawn spent those five nights we knew not. All we were certain of was the Holy Thorn at Chalice Hill or the Tor were where he would head. The anti Elvis, king of rock and roll would take the same path as Jesus. Though shamans we be, my God did we pray that week. Christ must listen. After all we'd smashed up over two hundred top range cars during Sunday services over the last year. Our spiritual kinship to him was unquestioned. Jesus packed in his job to drink wine with the homeless just as Lipton drank special brew with the homeless. Who was to say he hadn't stuck around the area, his last official sighting was on the trip he came on with Joseph of aramathea. There's a fuck of a lot of hippies and general spiritual types get drawn to live in GLASTONBURY. Tons of alternative therapy practitioners, crystal shops, the centre of british Druidism. We had a fair old guess that kick ass Jew with the death defying powers would still be around.
The Holy Thorn is of a species not found in Britain, only the Middle East. Joseph had, as the story goes, stabbed his staff in to the ground on Chalice Hill where it took root. Over the years it has had many attacks from the dark forces. From cromwellian new puritans to modern day grey resinheads. Somehow it always survived. Until a couple of years back when the agents of darkness came with chainsaws and wrecked the much loved tree. People still make pilgrimages from all over the world to see its remains that are bedecked in bright decorations that blow in the wind. Several cuttings are known to exist so the lifeline continues. One in GLASTONBURY abbey, another in the Chalice Well. Three others at secret locations.
It was a bright sunlit spring morning that Sunday we set out. The first hot day of the year. Murder puts one in mind of darkness, night time, rain. Yet we were off to kill in broad daylight. Armed with bolas, lassos, speed cuffs, zip ties, axes, knives, swords, Kevlar vests, AL-LAD and a bucket load of hope. We would need luck. We hoped for intervention from Christ, Ely, jesse, anything to give us the edge. We had Elys lowdown on how he could wup him as a boy but boy he was no more. Still, we walked tall. With a fair wind behind us, our shamanic powers and the weight of mankinds survival spurring us on we would kill Abel or die trying. It was our duty. There were no other ends possible to this one.
The drive went swiftly picking up a cockney hitch hiker, David Sedgley on the way. I'd picked him up before and he was a wide boy but worth the entry fee so long as you kept an eye on your wallet. Dropping him off at Worthy Farm he had some gripe over some confiscated stamps he had been selling at GLASTONBURY and was off to have it out with michael eavis.
Swinging through the town we parked up by the sports centre. 300ug AL -LAD should be sufficient to summon up Abel if he was around. After our four blotter trip on Exmoor neither of us wanted to push it a millimetre too far. With heavy rucksacks we crossed over the road and marched up Chalice Hill. The odd crusty mystic was there, practicing whatever spiritual habits they heald dear. The sacrament had not yet taken full effect so we touched the trunk and branches in reverence, muttering shamanic incantations, warning the tree and hill why we were there. Asking their blessing to kill a demon adolescent before all hell broke loose.
We could smell faintly the same burning metal we had at The Pitt but it was carried on the wind. He was close but we'd have to sniff him out. Walking the crest of Chalice Hill we finally were able to look down on the travel,re site at the old Moorlands factory and fields behind. The wind seemed to push us towards the town. A light chanting brought no response so we returned to the Holy Thorn, descended the hill and headed for the Tor.
By now the AL -LAD was working full strength and the spring sun warmed us in approval at our righteous task. As we climbed the hill to the tor we passed all types of spiritual searchers, from christians, Druids to pagans. With each pace the smell of iron smelting grew stronger. Taking in thee views around we discussed tactics. 'He's clearly sat inside the tor waiting for us, but tourists everywhere.' Were we able to kill in broad daylight? ' just time it, we get close, hang around till as few people are there then we charge in, one from either side.'
We could see the women experiencing sensations. Confused boyfriends and husbands glanced suspiciously at wives and partners as they let out involuntary sighs, gasps and moans. 'Oh, my god, yes!' One fit ausy backpacker shouted. Her boyfriend assumed she was in the throes of a religious experience, still, it was hard not to look over, such was her clear joy.
Creeping round, pretending to photograph the view I readied the zip ties for his ankles and positioned myself just to the left of the entrance from the climbing path. Lipton wrapped a length of piano wire round his gloved fingers, ready to garrotte the perverted demon soil sucker. Positioned at the other end. A back pack twat was in there too playing didgeridoo. Collateral damage, I mouthed to Lipton. To be fair one had to wonder how he tolerated the burning metal stench that even tourists stood yards away heald handkerchiefs to mouths to stifle.
After fifteen minutes, the orgasmic girl had to be led down hill. Her legs unable to support her. A quiet moment. Just us, didgeridoo and Abel.
'Now!' We lept in simultaneously. I got a zip tie round his ankles before even catching his eyes as Lipton slipped the garrotte round his throat. His eyes burnt like hot coals in anger as his gyrations through me on to the didgeridoo hippy. 'Fuck off out of here if you value your life!' I yelled and dropping his aboriginal pipe he fled down that hill like mo farah. Lipton wrestled as Abels fingers got under the wire. His gyrations grew stronger causing him to levitate. Lipton squeezed tighter and his burning coal eyes looked about to spring from his skull. His face, normally so white was purple. Gyrating backwards in a move from the bop jesse practiced, dropping a shoulder to touch the floor he dislodged some of liptons pressure. Blood returned to his feet and his ankles snapped the zip tie. Tourists were fleeing the hill as metal sparks sprayed from either entrance. Hip wacking us off we fell and like a sparking orange bullet of molten metal he shot out across the sky. We'd lost him.
Bruised and burnt. We sat opposite each other, heads bowed in defeat again. Tears fell from Lipton, 'so close, I could feel him going.' It was no ones fault. We were on a steep learning curve. To cheer him up I plucked out two special brew cans from my rucksack. 'Think what we've learned. Compare that to the Pitt. We're getting there Lipton. No one could hope to do this first time.'
He nodded. Still disconsolate.
'Alright lads' , the didgeridoo hippy had returned. A Palestinian bloke I now saw, long hair, matted beard but the gentlest smile I have ever seen. 'I was up here, playing my didge when that fucking demon came in, I'm not a fighting man myself, all peace with me and I think my tunes kinda soothed the bastard. His eyes glowed less, any road.'
'What's your name, brother, I'm Skree and yer man with the garrotte, he's Lipton.'
'Jesus Christ, they call me.'
I looked above his head and his halo glowed white and gold. He'd had it turned off earlier so as he got no hassle from tourists. 'Oh, it's a fucking nightmare. Christians! Fucking arseholes, just don't let on to them you've seen me, right. Two thousand years they've been waiting, too lazy to do owt for themselves, waiting for me to show up again to sort it all out for them. That's a lot of pressure on one guy, I can tell you.'
'Me and Lipton are big fans. We go smashing up their cars on Sunday mornings. We're well in to all your shit, you know, poverty, forgiveness, not lending money. We can't do the wine trick or walk on water but we've taken shed loads of psychedelic drugs.'
A warm kinship grew between us as he plucked a bottle of Beaujolais from behind liptons ear, then, without stopping a bottle of Chablis from behind mine.
'Brilliant, you're gonna have to teach us. I can relate to having the saving of mankind hoiked on to your shoulders, jesse, you know him?' , 'Know of him, Elvis underground brother isn't he, never met like.' 'Aye, well we went in search of his empire to join up but he talked us into killing his son.'
Jesus frowned, a bit close to the bone. 'No, it's nowt like you and your old man. This kiddy, the demon lad you were playing didge to, he's as evil as they come. Given chance he's going to kill and take all the females for his own nefarious ends. No more breeding. End of man.'
'Jesus fucking Christ, I should have helped you rather than pegged it. See, I'm none violence mostly. Bankers and loan sharks I don't mind twitting but other cunts, I don't know, I just seem to forgive them, can't help myself.'
'That's no worries mate. You're one of our heroes. This has made our day.' I took a long draft of the fine wine the lamb of god had cracked open. 'Well get another chance. It's not something you can easily do without learning his moves and that. Nearly had the fucker, mind.'
'Fucking right you did lads, he shot past me scared as fuck, I can tell you'
'So, how long you been round this way. '
'Years now, mate. Easy to blend in dressed in rags and beard here. Every cunts a mystic fucker so no one bothers me really.'
We sat and got pissed with Jesus as he kept the wine coming, till well in to the night. We tried to get the transcending death trick out of him but he was t having it. Nor the free wine one. 'You cunts can shoplift from asda, you don't need these tricks. It can get you in to a right heep of shite if you're not careful. One time...' ' Yeah, Jesus, we all know that one. Still, only had you out for 72 hours. That's fucking impressive.'
Jesus just nodded modestly. 'Look lads, next time you try to do Abel, give us a shout. I m not promising owt, as I say I'm none violent, but who knows, I could destract him. Ive got some party tricks never got mentioned in that fat boring book about me. That just covers some of my greatest hits. Ive learned shed loads more since.'
'How do we get in touch? I don't imagine you're one to give out your mobile number.'
'Easy, on your knees, close your eyes, cross your hands. Same as its always been.'
'We thought you and your dad had stopped answering?'
'Well we have, I'm not sorting shit out for rich cunts but you lads. I'll pick up straight away.'
'Thanks Jesus, you are a fucking gent.'
'Aye, top bloke!' Lipton concurred. He was looking worse for the wine, 'always knew you'd be sound, didn't I say Skree, sound cunt that Jesus.'
And there, walking down off the tor, trip fading and very drunk, we put arms round our shoulders in a line. The son of God in the middle. Having the burdon of mankind on a mans shoulders is something you seldom get to share with someone who knows the score.
'You'd best sleep in your van, lads. Crawling with filth round here. Got pulled for not wearing shoes once, tight cunts. And remember, when your ready, give us a shout.'
And with that the Palestinian jewish hippy. One of the all time most powerful Shamans, slipped off in to the night. Heading towards Moorlands traveller site. A quick blast of the halo, and gone.
'Fuck me, what a day, nearly killed Abel and met Jesus.'
'They don't come much better than that.'
Crawling into our sleeping bags a calmness overcame us and the most peaceful of sleeps took us under.
Sent from my iPad
Chapter 15 - The Summoning of Abel and the Pitt
Chapter 15 - The Summoning of Abel and the Pitt
Lipton was on site outside GLASTONBURY, towards Street. His recovery was complete and it was both good to see him well though still drinking fairly heavily but also embarassing that ID relapsed. Jesse had told us we would have to be clean and sober if we were to take out Abel. I guess neither of us could claim to be totally recovered.
I told him of my bookcase commission and how the client had asked me to come measure up if I was Abel. Lipton frowned. Was I Abel? Had jesses gyratory hellhog of a son somehow possessed me? The only sure fire way to know was to dance. Lipton took me to his trailer. An old refrigeration box. It's walls were covered in sheets of geometry and mathematical equations. Laid over maps of Exmoor the various circles and lines crossed over a single point. The Pitt. There was more drawing us to the area. Samuel Taylor Coleridge had written his famous opium dream inspired poem Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment in nearby Nether Stowey in 1797, published in 1816 on the prompting of Lord Byron. The poem was composed one night after experiencing an opium influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer palace of the Mongol ruler, Emperor of China Kublai Khan. On waking he set about writing lines of poetry but was interrupted by a visit from a man from Porlock. So confident of his memory Coleridge entertained the man however this caused him to forget the bulk of the dream.
Coleridge was known to walk with Wordsworth over the quantock hills where they were mistaken for French spies by locals.
Legend has it that beyond Culbone towards Lynmouth where Glenthorne is now situated, Jesus may have alighted on a trip with joseph of aramathea. Though born centuries apart, Jesus survived crucifixion so could easily have taken this trip with joseph. This inspired these famous lines in William Blake's poem, Jerusalem.
And did those feet in ancient times
Walk upon England's pastures green
And was the holy lamb of god
On England's pleasant pastures seen
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clove red fields
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills
Since jesse honoured us with the duty of saving mankind by killing his youngest son both me and Lipton had accepted we were shamans. There is no agreed on anthropological qualification for being a shaman, they come from many countries, many cultures. As shamanic witches we had followed the faith but only in as much as we avoided psychiatrists and western medicine, preferring to seek cures from shamans. Shamans aren't only involved in curing human ills, they also cure cultural and societal ills. Through the use of ayaushka, DMT, psylocibin, LSD, AL -LAD, we entered alternative domains to try to save mankind. If anyone qualified as shamans then it was us. This was serious work. Work most seemed oblivious even unbelieving that all they heald true and sacred was under threat.
We had been interested in Jesus for sometime now. Reading the gospels his message was clear. The poor would be going to heaven, fat rich bastards had more chance of getting through the eye of a needle riding a camel. Poverty, hallucinogenic cave fungi and strict malnutrition had given Jesus, the christians greatest ever shaman, visions and healing powers. We liked him.
Whilst Lipton was begging in bath one time I went to sit with him a while. Soon God botherers were on our case. They explained that they aimed to live by Jesus standards, each day they asked themselves, 'what would Jesus do?'. In swift reply liptons response was, 'well hed fuck cunts like you off for a start.'
As a boy my mother took me to church twenty odd times. Despite finding it very boring I prayed like fuck to see if the religion worked or not. Shortly after my mother died from cancer. It was a broken religion. Churches have a prayer rocket pointing to God. The christians kneel either side of the center aisle facing the victater. Opening his arms wide he gathers all the prayers and shoots them up the rocket. Some time ago some joker had gone round them all corking the prayer rocket gun, usually with a metal bird known as a weather cock. 'I doubt whether your prayers'll get there, cock!'
After taking up shamanism it wasn't long before I was seeing Angels, finding spiritual truths and God knows what, Guarunteed, every mushroom trip. This was a religion that still functioned properly and ive never looked back. But we are a small faith. We like Jesus and want to fix his religion, get them to team up with us to save mankind.
Talking to them wasn't easy. They didn't get a word he said. Some do and im sure their prayers work fine, but mostly they turn up on a Sunday in posh cars, showing off their wealth, then work all week. Together me and Lipton began to quietly help. We saw all the posh cars that were preventing them getting to heaven. Thinking what would Jesus do we remembered how he went mental down at the temple, kicked off big style with all money lenders. So we began to vandalise the cars out of love. How else could we help them? They had to give up money and go poor. Jesus packed in his job as a joiner so he could have a laugh with the poor and homeless. Work wasn't his bag at all. He could turn water in to wine, multiply loaves, he didn't need to work. These people worked like idiots to buy cars, watches, big houses and flat screen TVs. We selflessly risked arrest in our attempts to do what Jesus would do in an attempt to get their religion up and running again.
That night I stayed with Lipton on site. A large bonfire was lit and a sizeable party got going. Though on two good pills I got well in to the music. I even attracted a couple of ladies. Any ideas of me being possessed by Abel were soundly extinguished by my modest moves. This came as some relief to both Lipton and me. We both knew he would have had to kill me had I been Abel. I wouldn't have resisted.
So with a fresh lease of life we set off for Exmoor. Driving past the somerset levels, through bridgewater and minehead, on to Porlock and up porlock hill. Southerners claim it is the steepest hill to drive in england. Most northerners know hard knot pass and wry nose pass in Cumbria are far steeper, more windy, just loads more full on all round. Still, for a southern hill its impressive.
I measured up for a bookcase I was never to make. Much like Jesus I too would soon have visions causing me to abandon woodwork. As a shaman I am in no way Jesus class however, I did mushrooms, acid and other shamanic stuff from thirteen to twenty one, eight years shamanism before I picked up a chisel. Jesus, twenty years woodwork and just the three as a shaman. Perhaps if he'd split the two more evenly as I did he might have got away with not being crucified. Still, they only had him down for seventy two hours. Rising from the dead is one hell of a feat, belting shaman, so he was. Lipton and me rate him well highly. Sound bloke, in every way.
Afterwards we made for the Pitt. A vast chasm in to the underworld left over from some tin mine. If joseph of aramathea had come this way, with or without Jesus, it was pretty powerful pointers to our righteous path. Looking down in to the Pitt we were awe struck by its seemingly bottomless drop. We through white stones down and watched them fall before disappearing, three seconds passed then 'duff', they hit bottom.
We'd brought the shamanic ingredients for our ritual, even brought our own firewood, but no ropes or helmets or head torches. We contemplated possible ways to go down but this was seriously dangerous. All we could do was build our fire, hidden out there on the moor. Cook our dinner, drop the lysergics and see if Abel would rise from the Pitt.
Our food went down well and we both drank special brews to fortify ourselves before dropping 300ug AL -LAD and a further 200ug 1p-LSD. This would be a strong one. As night fell strong winds whipped the fire up in to fire demons. Seeing the spirits were high we began our chanting and drumming to summon up Abel. The sky was clear and free of light pollution. Constellations above us lifted us from that unbelieving state of none acceptance where they seem just pin prick lights to full acceptance of deep space and our place in the arm of the spiral galaxy. Moving away from the fire we lay on our backs watching shooting stars enter the atmosphere. Jupiter looked large and we felt its gravity. Mars sat red. We were in the solar system, hanging on to our spinning earth for dear life.
'Were forgetting Abel,' I said. Lipton was in deep space by now and tearing him away seemed cruel. I left him to continue his journey a while longer and restocked the fire. It was cold up there and the Pitt seemed to suck in any warmth.
Joining me by the fire we looked at each other, deeply tripped out, beside a vast hole on Exmoor. Together we walked as confidently as we could. Both scared at what might emerge but knowing any sign of weakness would be fuel to Abel. At Pitt edge we sat, legs dangling in to the abyss. Once more we began our drumming and chanting, quietly at first but building in volume and pace, summoning up jesses dark child. As our incantation built in power a tiny pinprick of light appeared to be spinning deep below. Louder we chanted, bring up the gyroscopic monstrosity, bring him up. In a swirling blaze of light, Abel shot up from the depths, his gyrations so powerful they caused the down draught of a chinook. Right in front of us he stared at us both with blood red eyes, suspended by gyratory forces right at the Pitts centre.
We could do nothing. All the ideas came too late. Could we have netted him? Lassoed him, had we been better prepared? Our fragile minds only heald off his evil by our protective pounding drumming and deep chanting. It kept him at bay as he span, spitting out sparks of molten iron like from a blacksmiths hammer. We had raised him but stood no chance of killing him. To walk across the Pitt we would have had to construct stout rigging, a rigid bridge if we were to fight him and nail the bastard.
As we cursed our stupidity one of us missed a beat letting Abel fly at us. For one moment I thought we were dead meat. Done for on Exmoor. Yet, diving down he flew over us, showering us with sparks. Then shot across the moor, toward Porlock. Our hair burnt in places, our coats full of small still smouldering holes, we beat off the embers.
Deeply shocked but both alive. I'd be lying if I claimed we weren't relieved though the sinking realisation of what we had summoned up from the underworld began to settle in.
'We have to follow him,' Lipton grimly nodded back. Not tonight however. We were far too transcendent to drive. All we could do was chant calming mantras, drum gentle appeasement to the Pitt. Finally tiredness took us under and we slept beside the fire. Our exhaustion carried us through dark dreamscapes, deep down we knew we had seriously messed up. Underestimated young huckleberry. Now he was no child but a gyratory demon of immense power.
Come morning we silently packed away our blankets and drums, axes and saws, in to the van. Driving back down Porlock Hill we decided to nip into minehead to find a toy shop. We bought an action man apiece. Opting for astronauts after our journey into space the previous night prior to Abels arrival. There's a long flat beach just outside minehead where we strapped our action men to makeshift boats from driftwood we found. A Viking funeral seemed fitting for our morose mood. Crafting bows of boy scale from young branches and arrows from some spare dowelling I had in the van, wrapping rags around the tips. Soaking our boats and astronauts in petrol we pushed them gently in to the lapping sea. Once they were fifteen feet out we fired our flaming arrows. After some four or five shots each they were ablaze. Once the plastic figures caught two black plumes of acrid smoke spiralled aloft. We were at our lowest.
Driving back we picked up somewhat. Joseph had made for Chalice Hill where he drove his staff in to the ground. This grew in to the holy thorn. When joseph and Jesus were around the waters would have been sail able right up to Challice Hill and GLASTONBURY Tor. We knew where Abel must have made for. Next time we'd be prepared. An early morning special brew reinstated our confidence and we were able to bask in the lysergic afterglow.
Sent from my iPad
Lipton was on site outside GLASTONBURY, towards Street. His recovery was complete and it was both good to see him well though still drinking fairly heavily but also embarassing that ID relapsed. Jesse had told us we would have to be clean and sober if we were to take out Abel. I guess neither of us could claim to be totally recovered.
I told him of my bookcase commission and how the client had asked me to come measure up if I was Abel. Lipton frowned. Was I Abel? Had jesses gyratory hellhog of a son somehow possessed me? The only sure fire way to know was to dance. Lipton took me to his trailer. An old refrigeration box. It's walls were covered in sheets of geometry and mathematical equations. Laid over maps of Exmoor the various circles and lines crossed over a single point. The Pitt. There was more drawing us to the area. Samuel Taylor Coleridge had written his famous opium dream inspired poem Kubla Khan; or, A Vision in a Dream: A Fragment in nearby Nether Stowey in 1797, published in 1816 on the prompting of Lord Byron. The poem was composed one night after experiencing an opium influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer palace of the Mongol ruler, Emperor of China Kublai Khan. On waking he set about writing lines of poetry but was interrupted by a visit from a man from Porlock. So confident of his memory Coleridge entertained the man however this caused him to forget the bulk of the dream.
Coleridge was known to walk with Wordsworth over the quantock hills where they were mistaken for French spies by locals.
Legend has it that beyond Culbone towards Lynmouth where Glenthorne is now situated, Jesus may have alighted on a trip with joseph of aramathea. Though born centuries apart, Jesus survived crucifixion so could easily have taken this trip with joseph. This inspired these famous lines in William Blake's poem, Jerusalem.
And did those feet in ancient times
Walk upon England's pastures green
And was the holy lamb of god
On England's pleasant pastures seen
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clove red fields
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark satanic mills
Since jesse honoured us with the duty of saving mankind by killing his youngest son both me and Lipton had accepted we were shamans. There is no agreed on anthropological qualification for being a shaman, they come from many countries, many cultures. As shamanic witches we had followed the faith but only in as much as we avoided psychiatrists and western medicine, preferring to seek cures from shamans. Shamans aren't only involved in curing human ills, they also cure cultural and societal ills. Through the use of ayaushka, DMT, psylocibin, LSD, AL -LAD, we entered alternative domains to try to save mankind. If anyone qualified as shamans then it was us. This was serious work. Work most seemed oblivious even unbelieving that all they heald true and sacred was under threat.
We had been interested in Jesus for sometime now. Reading the gospels his message was clear. The poor would be going to heaven, fat rich bastards had more chance of getting through the eye of a needle riding a camel. Poverty, hallucinogenic cave fungi and strict malnutrition had given Jesus, the christians greatest ever shaman, visions and healing powers. We liked him.
Whilst Lipton was begging in bath one time I went to sit with him a while. Soon God botherers were on our case. They explained that they aimed to live by Jesus standards, each day they asked themselves, 'what would Jesus do?'. In swift reply liptons response was, 'well hed fuck cunts like you off for a start.'
As a boy my mother took me to church twenty odd times. Despite finding it very boring I prayed like fuck to see if the religion worked or not. Shortly after my mother died from cancer. It was a broken religion. Churches have a prayer rocket pointing to God. The christians kneel either side of the center aisle facing the victater. Opening his arms wide he gathers all the prayers and shoots them up the rocket. Some time ago some joker had gone round them all corking the prayer rocket gun, usually with a metal bird known as a weather cock. 'I doubt whether your prayers'll get there, cock!'
After taking up shamanism it wasn't long before I was seeing Angels, finding spiritual truths and God knows what, Guarunteed, every mushroom trip. This was a religion that still functioned properly and ive never looked back. But we are a small faith. We like Jesus and want to fix his religion, get them to team up with us to save mankind.
Talking to them wasn't easy. They didn't get a word he said. Some do and im sure their prayers work fine, but mostly they turn up on a Sunday in posh cars, showing off their wealth, then work all week. Together me and Lipton began to quietly help. We saw all the posh cars that were preventing them getting to heaven. Thinking what would Jesus do we remembered how he went mental down at the temple, kicked off big style with all money lenders. So we began to vandalise the cars out of love. How else could we help them? They had to give up money and go poor. Jesus packed in his job as a joiner so he could have a laugh with the poor and homeless. Work wasn't his bag at all. He could turn water in to wine, multiply loaves, he didn't need to work. These people worked like idiots to buy cars, watches, big houses and flat screen TVs. We selflessly risked arrest in our attempts to do what Jesus would do in an attempt to get their religion up and running again.
That night I stayed with Lipton on site. A large bonfire was lit and a sizeable party got going. Though on two good pills I got well in to the music. I even attracted a couple of ladies. Any ideas of me being possessed by Abel were soundly extinguished by my modest moves. This came as some relief to both Lipton and me. We both knew he would have had to kill me had I been Abel. I wouldn't have resisted.
So with a fresh lease of life we set off for Exmoor. Driving past the somerset levels, through bridgewater and minehead, on to Porlock and up porlock hill. Southerners claim it is the steepest hill to drive in england. Most northerners know hard knot pass and wry nose pass in Cumbria are far steeper, more windy, just loads more full on all round. Still, for a southern hill its impressive.
I measured up for a bookcase I was never to make. Much like Jesus I too would soon have visions causing me to abandon woodwork. As a shaman I am in no way Jesus class however, I did mushrooms, acid and other shamanic stuff from thirteen to twenty one, eight years shamanism before I picked up a chisel. Jesus, twenty years woodwork and just the three as a shaman. Perhaps if he'd split the two more evenly as I did he might have got away with not being crucified. Still, they only had him down for seventy two hours. Rising from the dead is one hell of a feat, belting shaman, so he was. Lipton and me rate him well highly. Sound bloke, in every way.
Afterwards we made for the Pitt. A vast chasm in to the underworld left over from some tin mine. If joseph of aramathea had come this way, with or without Jesus, it was pretty powerful pointers to our righteous path. Looking down in to the Pitt we were awe struck by its seemingly bottomless drop. We through white stones down and watched them fall before disappearing, three seconds passed then 'duff', they hit bottom.
We'd brought the shamanic ingredients for our ritual, even brought our own firewood, but no ropes or helmets or head torches. We contemplated possible ways to go down but this was seriously dangerous. All we could do was build our fire, hidden out there on the moor. Cook our dinner, drop the lysergics and see if Abel would rise from the Pitt.
Our food went down well and we both drank special brews to fortify ourselves before dropping 300ug AL -LAD and a further 200ug 1p-LSD. This would be a strong one. As night fell strong winds whipped the fire up in to fire demons. Seeing the spirits were high we began our chanting and drumming to summon up Abel. The sky was clear and free of light pollution. Constellations above us lifted us from that unbelieving state of none acceptance where they seem just pin prick lights to full acceptance of deep space and our place in the arm of the spiral galaxy. Moving away from the fire we lay on our backs watching shooting stars enter the atmosphere. Jupiter looked large and we felt its gravity. Mars sat red. We were in the solar system, hanging on to our spinning earth for dear life.
'Were forgetting Abel,' I said. Lipton was in deep space by now and tearing him away seemed cruel. I left him to continue his journey a while longer and restocked the fire. It was cold up there and the Pitt seemed to suck in any warmth.
Joining me by the fire we looked at each other, deeply tripped out, beside a vast hole on Exmoor. Together we walked as confidently as we could. Both scared at what might emerge but knowing any sign of weakness would be fuel to Abel. At Pitt edge we sat, legs dangling in to the abyss. Once more we began our drumming and chanting, quietly at first but building in volume and pace, summoning up jesses dark child. As our incantation built in power a tiny pinprick of light appeared to be spinning deep below. Louder we chanted, bring up the gyroscopic monstrosity, bring him up. In a swirling blaze of light, Abel shot up from the depths, his gyrations so powerful they caused the down draught of a chinook. Right in front of us he stared at us both with blood red eyes, suspended by gyratory forces right at the Pitts centre.
We could do nothing. All the ideas came too late. Could we have netted him? Lassoed him, had we been better prepared? Our fragile minds only heald off his evil by our protective pounding drumming and deep chanting. It kept him at bay as he span, spitting out sparks of molten iron like from a blacksmiths hammer. We had raised him but stood no chance of killing him. To walk across the Pitt we would have had to construct stout rigging, a rigid bridge if we were to fight him and nail the bastard.
As we cursed our stupidity one of us missed a beat letting Abel fly at us. For one moment I thought we were dead meat. Done for on Exmoor. Yet, diving down he flew over us, showering us with sparks. Then shot across the moor, toward Porlock. Our hair burnt in places, our coats full of small still smouldering holes, we beat off the embers.
Deeply shocked but both alive. I'd be lying if I claimed we weren't relieved though the sinking realisation of what we had summoned up from the underworld began to settle in.
'We have to follow him,' Lipton grimly nodded back. Not tonight however. We were far too transcendent to drive. All we could do was chant calming mantras, drum gentle appeasement to the Pitt. Finally tiredness took us under and we slept beside the fire. Our exhaustion carried us through dark dreamscapes, deep down we knew we had seriously messed up. Underestimated young huckleberry. Now he was no child but a gyratory demon of immense power.
Come morning we silently packed away our blankets and drums, axes and saws, in to the van. Driving back down Porlock Hill we decided to nip into minehead to find a toy shop. We bought an action man apiece. Opting for astronauts after our journey into space the previous night prior to Abels arrival. There's a long flat beach just outside minehead where we strapped our action men to makeshift boats from driftwood we found. A Viking funeral seemed fitting for our morose mood. Crafting bows of boy scale from young branches and arrows from some spare dowelling I had in the van, wrapping rags around the tips. Soaking our boats and astronauts in petrol we pushed them gently in to the lapping sea. Once they were fifteen feet out we fired our flaming arrows. After some four or five shots each they were ablaze. Once the plastic figures caught two black plumes of acrid smoke spiralled aloft. We were at our lowest.
Driving back we picked up somewhat. Joseph had made for Chalice Hill where he drove his staff in to the ground. This grew in to the holy thorn. When joseph and Jesus were around the waters would have been sail able right up to Challice Hill and GLASTONBURY Tor. We knew where Abel must have made for. Next time we'd be prepared. An early morning special brew reinstated our confidence and we were able to bask in the lysergic afterglow.
Sent from my iPad
Wednesday 17 June 2015
Chapter 14 - Schizotypal or Visionary?
Chapter 14 - Schizotypal or Visionary?
My mind reignited and manic once more, the mundane once again grew fantastic. Though invariably pestered by mental health experts, these episodes became an awakening of spiritual proportions. Though disturbing to some around me, the higher realities that common man was not party to were what seperated me. They made the dull mediocrity of consensus reality seem a determined conspiracy to strip the world of colour. There may well be a fixed reality but no one is able to bare witness other than through their own eyes. Our senses aren't the illusions they seem. Eyes are not windows but devices that detect information from which the brain creates images. We never can see what is there. Quantum mechanics even suggests reality, certainly at a sub atomic level has not yet decided what it is, only when viewed does it becom particle or wave. Is it too far to jump to say consiousness, our personal awareness is the only thing we can be truly sure of. Because trained men who still haven't a clue how matter could think, men who form the profession psychiatry yet have no clue why schizoid episodes plague some people. It is estimated between 5 and 10% of people are schizotypal. This means they exhibit at least one symptom of schizophrenia. Hearing voices is common, it doesn't make you mad. You are diagnosed as schizophrenic if you exhibit more than a few symptoms. It is not an illness like cancer where all sufferers share common physiological distinctions. Two schizophrenics can not share a single symptom yet share a diagnosis. A category of clumsy antipsychotic drugs developed in the 1950s are the sole armoury. These subdue some of the more extreme positive symptoms but have brutal side effects. Weight gain, sluggish thinking, loss of any enthusiasm. Talking therapies are out of fashion since RD Laings disastrous attempts to understandp schizophrenia, largely blaming the family. It is common for an individual to be diagnosed schizophrenic by one psychiatrist then bipolar by another. They genuinly havnt got a clue. Many schizophrenics refuse their medicine as they don't believe that their perception of the world is any less valid than anyone else. To acknowledge another person is right regarding reality undermines all sense of identity. Many successful people undergo a schizoid episode. To be honest, you are better off consulting religious or spiritualists, their framework accommodates religious experience. For some, alongside terrifying delusions come moments of utter beauty. There is little to suggest genetics are that significant. Epigenetic's, genes that may never affect a person can be triggered by experiences. Cannabis, trauma, parental rejection, parental loss, many things can trigger psychotic episodes. Some people have a single episode, a single period of life then grow out of it. Some get worse. Some have periodical bouts. There are strong indicators that schizoids and very creative people are connected. During a manic episode I feel better, sharper, quicker thinking, better at making unusual connections, less needing of sleep. It is utterly seductive. A super power. Yet this can crumble to long periods of gloom, lack of self belief, depression. Psychotic episodes are seldom total. Usually windows of normality punctuate the delusions. There is nothing I have experienced that is as personally hurtful and undermining as when people think you are mad. You see it in their eyes. A patronising look of false sincerity. The rare horror story perpetuates a grand misconception. Unless undergoing a severe psychotic episode, most schizophrenics appear normal. A schizophrenic is 100 times more likely to kill themselves than kill another. Once diagnosed as mad mental health professionals see anything as a symptom of your self delusion. Trying to convince a psychiatrist you are sane can be impossible. Yet their 'science' has no factual or physical basis, only the symptoms. There is no physical test to diagnose schizoids. I prefer manic depressive. It fits me more accurately than bipolar 1. Besides, I'm usually neither manic nor depressed. The greatest moments of my life have been whilst manic, my best work has come from these periods. I don't hurt people, not by intent and I am not violent. Is there really much difference between an artist building purposeless objects obsessively and a manic quest for reality? And personally, though my life is seldom easy, I would never give up that which makes me me to join the grey conformity of normal life. I am regularly astonished how blinkered most people's thinking is. I may never structure as solid a realised reality narrative as some, but I prefer my mess of contrasting angles, and I somehow think the major leaps can not come from the stable minds. Schizotypal individuals occur in all societies and at roughly the same rate throughout history. This condition that lowers life expectancy dramatically ought to be evolved out of. Yet it remains. I believe it is because you need us. All great paradigm leaps in human understanding appear crazy at first. By definition they must. So, to quote David Bowie, 'I'd rather stay here, with all the madmen.' Whose right is it, from the sole window of their own perception, to decide what reality is? what is the truth? No one knows. We all go through periods of good and poor physical health to greater or lesser degrees. Isn't the same true for our mental health? It requires strength to stick to what you see as real when all around you form a consensus, not wanting to be left out of the in crowd. Yet political fashions can sweep a nation as nazism did. The current conservative agenda of blaming the victims of circumstance does not hold up, yet many are taken in by it. With online communities of common interest, freed from the random cut and thrust of diverse opinion we experience out in the street, perversions become compounded, from radicalised Islamists, to fine woodworkers to paedophiles. Almost any moral structure can form free of the small boy, prepared to say the emperor wears no clothes. Society needs its loonies, it's outsiders, it's weirdos. It's mental health depends on it.
Sent from my iPad
My mind reignited and manic once more, the mundane once again grew fantastic. Though invariably pestered by mental health experts, these episodes became an awakening of spiritual proportions. Though disturbing to some around me, the higher realities that common man was not party to were what seperated me. They made the dull mediocrity of consensus reality seem a determined conspiracy to strip the world of colour. There may well be a fixed reality but no one is able to bare witness other than through their own eyes. Our senses aren't the illusions they seem. Eyes are not windows but devices that detect information from which the brain creates images. We never can see what is there. Quantum mechanics even suggests reality, certainly at a sub atomic level has not yet decided what it is, only when viewed does it becom particle or wave. Is it too far to jump to say consiousness, our personal awareness is the only thing we can be truly sure of. Because trained men who still haven't a clue how matter could think, men who form the profession psychiatry yet have no clue why schizoid episodes plague some people. It is estimated between 5 and 10% of people are schizotypal. This means they exhibit at least one symptom of schizophrenia. Hearing voices is common, it doesn't make you mad. You are diagnosed as schizophrenic if you exhibit more than a few symptoms. It is not an illness like cancer where all sufferers share common physiological distinctions. Two schizophrenics can not share a single symptom yet share a diagnosis. A category of clumsy antipsychotic drugs developed in the 1950s are the sole armoury. These subdue some of the more extreme positive symptoms but have brutal side effects. Weight gain, sluggish thinking, loss of any enthusiasm. Talking therapies are out of fashion since RD Laings disastrous attempts to understandp schizophrenia, largely blaming the family. It is common for an individual to be diagnosed schizophrenic by one psychiatrist then bipolar by another. They genuinly havnt got a clue. Many schizophrenics refuse their medicine as they don't believe that their perception of the world is any less valid than anyone else. To acknowledge another person is right regarding reality undermines all sense of identity. Many successful people undergo a schizoid episode. To be honest, you are better off consulting religious or spiritualists, their framework accommodates religious experience. For some, alongside terrifying delusions come moments of utter beauty. There is little to suggest genetics are that significant. Epigenetic's, genes that may never affect a person can be triggered by experiences. Cannabis, trauma, parental rejection, parental loss, many things can trigger psychotic episodes. Some people have a single episode, a single period of life then grow out of it. Some get worse. Some have periodical bouts. There are strong indicators that schizoids and very creative people are connected. During a manic episode I feel better, sharper, quicker thinking, better at making unusual connections, less needing of sleep. It is utterly seductive. A super power. Yet this can crumble to long periods of gloom, lack of self belief, depression. Psychotic episodes are seldom total. Usually windows of normality punctuate the delusions. There is nothing I have experienced that is as personally hurtful and undermining as when people think you are mad. You see it in their eyes. A patronising look of false sincerity. The rare horror story perpetuates a grand misconception. Unless undergoing a severe psychotic episode, most schizophrenics appear normal. A schizophrenic is 100 times more likely to kill themselves than kill another. Once diagnosed as mad mental health professionals see anything as a symptom of your self delusion. Trying to convince a psychiatrist you are sane can be impossible. Yet their 'science' has no factual or physical basis, only the symptoms. There is no physical test to diagnose schizoids. I prefer manic depressive. It fits me more accurately than bipolar 1. Besides, I'm usually neither manic nor depressed. The greatest moments of my life have been whilst manic, my best work has come from these periods. I don't hurt people, not by intent and I am not violent. Is there really much difference between an artist building purposeless objects obsessively and a manic quest for reality? And personally, though my life is seldom easy, I would never give up that which makes me me to join the grey conformity of normal life. I am regularly astonished how blinkered most people's thinking is. I may never structure as solid a realised reality narrative as some, but I prefer my mess of contrasting angles, and I somehow think the major leaps can not come from the stable minds. Schizotypal individuals occur in all societies and at roughly the same rate throughout history. This condition that lowers life expectancy dramatically ought to be evolved out of. Yet it remains. I believe it is because you need us. All great paradigm leaps in human understanding appear crazy at first. By definition they must. So, to quote David Bowie, 'I'd rather stay here, with all the madmen.' Whose right is it, from the sole window of their own perception, to decide what reality is? what is the truth? No one knows. We all go through periods of good and poor physical health to greater or lesser degrees. Isn't the same true for our mental health? It requires strength to stick to what you see as real when all around you form a consensus, not wanting to be left out of the in crowd. Yet political fashions can sweep a nation as nazism did. The current conservative agenda of blaming the victims of circumstance does not hold up, yet many are taken in by it. With online communities of common interest, freed from the random cut and thrust of diverse opinion we experience out in the street, perversions become compounded, from radicalised Islamists, to fine woodworkers to paedophiles. Almost any moral structure can form free of the small boy, prepared to say the emperor wears no clothes. Society needs its loonies, it's outsiders, it's weirdos. It's mental health depends on it.
Sent from my iPad
Chapter 13 The Emptiness and Reemergence of Abel
Chapter 13 The Emptiness and Reemergence of Abel
To disparage my two years of sobriety is unfair. I always had money. Without Tex our freedom to travel became much greater. In his younger days he was the perfect alarm. Indeed, my original reason for getting Tex was to return to Spain and Morrocco where I had spent two long expeditions travelling in my old Merc 307. Pulling up in strange places, particularly when it's dark, can deliver a troubled nights sleep. Noises outside can disturb you. In Morocco particularly one can pull up in a seemingly quiet countryside area to find anything not strapped down borrowed. Tex was the answer. By the time of the Jesse mission he was ageing and no longer enjoyed new places.
So we explored the Jurassic coast. Drove up to the East Yorkshire coast and enjoyed van life for a summer. Finding myself flush we moved to a new house. I got Dook and had quite forgotten how wild a young cross shepherd husky can be. I was stable. No super natural events occurred. I worked hard.
I can't recall exactly what lit up my curiosity, I think it was a documentary on channel 4, but I became aware of research chemicals. These are legal substances but untested. I believe, originally, due to a drop of quality in cocaine and MDMa, a Dr Zeeb created mephedrone, a cathinone stimulant that, at the time was 99% pure, cheap and opened up a market in new experimental substances. After its ban and to this day the creation of new psychoactive substances expanded. In 2013 a new product a week was being released. Now it's close to two a week. Most of them are rubbish. Imitations of illegals. Some are exrtremely dangerous. A number of forums developed where people, psychonauts discussed harm reduction and their experiences. The knowledge base grew swiftly with many young people having a broad chemical knowledge and understanding of neurotransmitters and receptor sites.
Having field tested and studied drugs most of my adult life I was curious to learn what I was missing out on. The dissociatives developed to mimic ketamine were very strange. Benzos of a wide variety became cheaply available. Many more specific than those prescribed by gps. Some were short lasting meaning no hangover, others lasted for days. Some operated on soperific GABA receptors, others delivered little sensation but removed all anxiety.
At the very top of the field, advanced lysergics became available. These were works of sophistication, often recreations of David Nichols work and Alexander Shulgin. Between these two, a whole spectrum of new psychoactives was born. My discovery of LSZ and finally AL-LAD was the crowning glory of the movement. I shall describe my experiences later. These were recreated by a great chemist, lizard labs. Now based in Europe where AL -LAD is still legal. On January 7th 2015, in the UK, despite no deaths or reported harm, the innevitable ban came in. The psychedelics are the least harmful but most illegal of drugs. They deliver transcendent experiences, religious epiphanies. Far more dangerous chemicals were permitted to continue to be sold. Seven days later in a stroke of genius, lizard labs released 1p-LSD. What seperates these LSD derivatives primarily is that they are less demanding. Acid was often called the heaven and hell drug as bad trips, hallucinatory nightmares occassionaly happened. Mushrooms too could deliver a frightening degree of self reflection. I had loved them in my teens but found them too much and gave up by my twenties. My psychedelic reawakening was round the corner. But not before a near death experience. A journey in to the future and a long psychosis.
As a recovering addict I shouldn't have been around drugs but once you are in a small town you know everyone. I see people scoring each day, even now I am again teatotal. What triggered my relapse was completely out of the blue. I was ready to set off to London to do some finishing touches to a maple office I had made in Chelsea when a package arrived. A long time back someone had owed me some drugs that I had completely forgotten about. Opening the package the most generous two bags of heroin and two large rocks fell out. No harm was meant. But I had a pipe before driving off to London.
After a taxing day I finally arrived home at ten or eleven and pipes were on the go, foil was smeared with brown beetles of afghany heroin. I was instantly offered a pipe and accepted. I had my own too from the letter. And so began a six week or two months of daily crack use. The quality was good, the deals generous and the supplier a really nice guy. That never helps.
I also began experimenting to work out which reaearch chemicals were any good.
It wasn't long before I was right back where I was at the tailend of my last crack habit. Ready to blow my head off each night. Self hatred. Guilt at letting people down and all funds gone. Crack takes as much money as most people have. Several hundred a day is easy to get through.
Such was my despair I did something I still don't fully understand. I put an atom bomb under it. I tried to take my own life. I had a new dissociative anaesthetic hallucinogen. Methoxphenidine. A beginners dose might be around 20mg. I took 1.5 grammes, seventy five times that dose. I didn't expect to survive.
I have described this in earlier chapters but never touched on how much damage I caused. How much distress to others, were it not for Claire I would either be dead or sectioned. My memories of it all are hazy. I still hear tales of things I said and did during the psychosis. This lasted for a month and everything electrical was destroyed, blood smeared the walls, broken stuff was everywhere once I returned to Earth. The damage to my brain still lingers.
For four days I couldn't walk or talk despite trying to incessantly. My legs grew to seventy feet, then one shrunk to action man size so imbalanced, each time I stood I fell. How I was to there I can not say. However, from inside, my consiousness became detached from my body and shot at light speed in to the deep future. I was on some travel system where mind could travel in streams of white light. Minds were linked to advanced digital systems, far and away in advance of torn. Of course space is time so rather than go off round the galaxy I travelled to the deep future. Here I was informed by something not unlike Philip K Dicks Valis, a living computer of God like complexity that, due to mans destruction of the earth, we had dispensed with bodies. Our consiousness had proved ultimately to be separable from its biological roots. For sure, it evolved from biology but reached a point where intervention could seperate this emergent property from our material selves. Man would survive, but not as an animal as he had evolved. It was clean, white, pure, yet bereft of any organic plant or animal.
This beautiful period did not last. I recall trying to leave the house but being unable to walk and clearly psychotic was persuaded to stay in. The room was a conventional box shape but it's corners would elongate or shrink, just like my legs, forming triangular, parallelogram, kite walls. As a corner shrunk I would be crushed and shifted about.
Looking outside I saw we were in a distopian America. Not so far in the future. Again no organic life was apparent. It was an endless dessert of broken brightly coloured domestic plastic junk, from hoovers to weird sex toys, kettles, children's toys. A sea of day glo plastics stretching to the horizon.
Freinds and relatives were informed of my madness, most of whom thought I should be sectioned. I found myself screaming at the drug service workers who were clueless as to what to do with me.
After a week, still psychotic, I regained control of my body. Sitting outside I drifted in to the past. I was a veteran of the Somme. Invalided out, I saw spitfires returning from Europe and cried as the guilt of being unable to join the fight shamed me.
It was here I took to walking the streets, mumbling like a madman. The villagers were after me to lynch me for my witchcraft. Mobs of them could be heard chasing me as I raced around town with Dook. Crows swooped down on me crying, 'Skree' ,'Skree,' telling the lynchmob where to find me.
My psychosis lasted four weeks. Freinds helped out. Finally, as reality returned I saw the damage I'd made. Figuring Claire needed a break, I went to my brothers where I built him a porch. Brutal though it is, I remember little of the hell I put people through. Still i get told of things I did. It upsets me thinking about it. A shameful episode. At one point Lipton turned up wanting help fitting his new van out, figuring I am known as good at making. They still refer to the hugely piggeldy mess of a corner as Skrees end. I think he left as I was making no sense.
Losing the trust of people is hurtful. No one trusting you hurts even if they are right not to.
After the month of pure psychosis I slowly returned to normal but it took time. I walked miles each morning. It was during this period I bonded and weirdly trained Dook to the low level he can be called trained. Strapped to a madman can have been no fun.
I had to take time off. This began the loss of my house. Strangely, the first time I bought a house I soon got a heroin habit, second attempt to join the middle class i undermined it again. There is a strong self destructive element to my nature. Whether I don't feel I deserve things, whether I think I'm not worthy, I really don't know. Maybe I just think I ought to aspire to a house and normality. My animal nature steps in to over rule the cognitive reasoning always.
To sooth my fried mind I was prescribed benzos. I also picked up a habit with ethylphenidate that nearly killed me.
I tried to carry on working but in truth I wasn't well. Only through this powerful and corrosive stimulant could I negate the benzo sedation.
Down on Exmoor I had furnished the bedrooms of a house. Two double beds, four single beds, a bunk bed set, five chests of drawers, five dressing tables and seven vanity units. The trail had run cold. I had seen little of Lipton and barely a murmur from jesse.
Out of the blue I got a call. A bookcase was needed. The client asked if I could come to measure up, if I was Abel. In my hyper awareness, this could mean but one thing. Our task, as layed out by Elvis' subterranian twin was due. We were indebted to jesse. Only we could save the nation. Abel was on Exmoor. In the Pitt. Our sworn goal, to kill the monster.
Sent from my iPad
To disparage my two years of sobriety is unfair. I always had money. Without Tex our freedom to travel became much greater. In his younger days he was the perfect alarm. Indeed, my original reason for getting Tex was to return to Spain and Morrocco where I had spent two long expeditions travelling in my old Merc 307. Pulling up in strange places, particularly when it's dark, can deliver a troubled nights sleep. Noises outside can disturb you. In Morocco particularly one can pull up in a seemingly quiet countryside area to find anything not strapped down borrowed. Tex was the answer. By the time of the Jesse mission he was ageing and no longer enjoyed new places.
So we explored the Jurassic coast. Drove up to the East Yorkshire coast and enjoyed van life for a summer. Finding myself flush we moved to a new house. I got Dook and had quite forgotten how wild a young cross shepherd husky can be. I was stable. No super natural events occurred. I worked hard.
I can't recall exactly what lit up my curiosity, I think it was a documentary on channel 4, but I became aware of research chemicals. These are legal substances but untested. I believe, originally, due to a drop of quality in cocaine and MDMa, a Dr Zeeb created mephedrone, a cathinone stimulant that, at the time was 99% pure, cheap and opened up a market in new experimental substances. After its ban and to this day the creation of new psychoactive substances expanded. In 2013 a new product a week was being released. Now it's close to two a week. Most of them are rubbish. Imitations of illegals. Some are exrtremely dangerous. A number of forums developed where people, psychonauts discussed harm reduction and their experiences. The knowledge base grew swiftly with many young people having a broad chemical knowledge and understanding of neurotransmitters and receptor sites.
Having field tested and studied drugs most of my adult life I was curious to learn what I was missing out on. The dissociatives developed to mimic ketamine were very strange. Benzos of a wide variety became cheaply available. Many more specific than those prescribed by gps. Some were short lasting meaning no hangover, others lasted for days. Some operated on soperific GABA receptors, others delivered little sensation but removed all anxiety.
At the very top of the field, advanced lysergics became available. These were works of sophistication, often recreations of David Nichols work and Alexander Shulgin. Between these two, a whole spectrum of new psychoactives was born. My discovery of LSZ and finally AL-LAD was the crowning glory of the movement. I shall describe my experiences later. These were recreated by a great chemist, lizard labs. Now based in Europe where AL -LAD is still legal. On January 7th 2015, in the UK, despite no deaths or reported harm, the innevitable ban came in. The psychedelics are the least harmful but most illegal of drugs. They deliver transcendent experiences, religious epiphanies. Far more dangerous chemicals were permitted to continue to be sold. Seven days later in a stroke of genius, lizard labs released 1p-LSD. What seperates these LSD derivatives primarily is that they are less demanding. Acid was often called the heaven and hell drug as bad trips, hallucinatory nightmares occassionaly happened. Mushrooms too could deliver a frightening degree of self reflection. I had loved them in my teens but found them too much and gave up by my twenties. My psychedelic reawakening was round the corner. But not before a near death experience. A journey in to the future and a long psychosis.
As a recovering addict I shouldn't have been around drugs but once you are in a small town you know everyone. I see people scoring each day, even now I am again teatotal. What triggered my relapse was completely out of the blue. I was ready to set off to London to do some finishing touches to a maple office I had made in Chelsea when a package arrived. A long time back someone had owed me some drugs that I had completely forgotten about. Opening the package the most generous two bags of heroin and two large rocks fell out. No harm was meant. But I had a pipe before driving off to London.
After a taxing day I finally arrived home at ten or eleven and pipes were on the go, foil was smeared with brown beetles of afghany heroin. I was instantly offered a pipe and accepted. I had my own too from the letter. And so began a six week or two months of daily crack use. The quality was good, the deals generous and the supplier a really nice guy. That never helps.
I also began experimenting to work out which reaearch chemicals were any good.
It wasn't long before I was right back where I was at the tailend of my last crack habit. Ready to blow my head off each night. Self hatred. Guilt at letting people down and all funds gone. Crack takes as much money as most people have. Several hundred a day is easy to get through.
Such was my despair I did something I still don't fully understand. I put an atom bomb under it. I tried to take my own life. I had a new dissociative anaesthetic hallucinogen. Methoxphenidine. A beginners dose might be around 20mg. I took 1.5 grammes, seventy five times that dose. I didn't expect to survive.
I have described this in earlier chapters but never touched on how much damage I caused. How much distress to others, were it not for Claire I would either be dead or sectioned. My memories of it all are hazy. I still hear tales of things I said and did during the psychosis. This lasted for a month and everything electrical was destroyed, blood smeared the walls, broken stuff was everywhere once I returned to Earth. The damage to my brain still lingers.
For four days I couldn't walk or talk despite trying to incessantly. My legs grew to seventy feet, then one shrunk to action man size so imbalanced, each time I stood I fell. How I was to there I can not say. However, from inside, my consiousness became detached from my body and shot at light speed in to the deep future. I was on some travel system where mind could travel in streams of white light. Minds were linked to advanced digital systems, far and away in advance of torn. Of course space is time so rather than go off round the galaxy I travelled to the deep future. Here I was informed by something not unlike Philip K Dicks Valis, a living computer of God like complexity that, due to mans destruction of the earth, we had dispensed with bodies. Our consiousness had proved ultimately to be separable from its biological roots. For sure, it evolved from biology but reached a point where intervention could seperate this emergent property from our material selves. Man would survive, but not as an animal as he had evolved. It was clean, white, pure, yet bereft of any organic plant or animal.
This beautiful period did not last. I recall trying to leave the house but being unable to walk and clearly psychotic was persuaded to stay in. The room was a conventional box shape but it's corners would elongate or shrink, just like my legs, forming triangular, parallelogram, kite walls. As a corner shrunk I would be crushed and shifted about.
Looking outside I saw we were in a distopian America. Not so far in the future. Again no organic life was apparent. It was an endless dessert of broken brightly coloured domestic plastic junk, from hoovers to weird sex toys, kettles, children's toys. A sea of day glo plastics stretching to the horizon.
Freinds and relatives were informed of my madness, most of whom thought I should be sectioned. I found myself screaming at the drug service workers who were clueless as to what to do with me.
After a week, still psychotic, I regained control of my body. Sitting outside I drifted in to the past. I was a veteran of the Somme. Invalided out, I saw spitfires returning from Europe and cried as the guilt of being unable to join the fight shamed me.
It was here I took to walking the streets, mumbling like a madman. The villagers were after me to lynch me for my witchcraft. Mobs of them could be heard chasing me as I raced around town with Dook. Crows swooped down on me crying, 'Skree' ,'Skree,' telling the lynchmob where to find me.
My psychosis lasted four weeks. Freinds helped out. Finally, as reality returned I saw the damage I'd made. Figuring Claire needed a break, I went to my brothers where I built him a porch. Brutal though it is, I remember little of the hell I put people through. Still i get told of things I did. It upsets me thinking about it. A shameful episode. At one point Lipton turned up wanting help fitting his new van out, figuring I am known as good at making. They still refer to the hugely piggeldy mess of a corner as Skrees end. I think he left as I was making no sense.
Losing the trust of people is hurtful. No one trusting you hurts even if they are right not to.
After the month of pure psychosis I slowly returned to normal but it took time. I walked miles each morning. It was during this period I bonded and weirdly trained Dook to the low level he can be called trained. Strapped to a madman can have been no fun.
I had to take time off. This began the loss of my house. Strangely, the first time I bought a house I soon got a heroin habit, second attempt to join the middle class i undermined it again. There is a strong self destructive element to my nature. Whether I don't feel I deserve things, whether I think I'm not worthy, I really don't know. Maybe I just think I ought to aspire to a house and normality. My animal nature steps in to over rule the cognitive reasoning always.
To sooth my fried mind I was prescribed benzos. I also picked up a habit with ethylphenidate that nearly killed me.
I tried to carry on working but in truth I wasn't well. Only through this powerful and corrosive stimulant could I negate the benzo sedation.
Down on Exmoor I had furnished the bedrooms of a house. Two double beds, four single beds, a bunk bed set, five chests of drawers, five dressing tables and seven vanity units. The trail had run cold. I had seen little of Lipton and barely a murmur from jesse.
Out of the blue I got a call. A bookcase was needed. The client asked if I could come to measure up, if I was Abel. In my hyper awareness, this could mean but one thing. Our task, as layed out by Elvis' subterranian twin was due. We were indebted to jesse. Only we could save the nation. Abel was on Exmoor. In the Pitt. Our sworn goal, to kill the monster.
Sent from my iPad
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