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.


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