Recalling early training triggered my logic, and reactivated patterns that I’d not used or participated in for over 25 years.
It was thrilling to get set up and ready for a focus session again. In my room, near the shelves, I sat in my chair with the portable table nearby. I brought it right in front of me, and laid out the tools needed – notebook, phone camera, candle (with lighter), amber piece, incense, incense holder, then a small tray with the selected object in the centre.
The object is draped in a plain white cloth. It wasn’t easy to decide which object to choose first, and I just allowed my mind to float freely for a few moments before it settled gently upon my meagre collection of terracotta figurines, Mexican clay figures. Soon it settled on a rock-like form made of glass, then back to the terracotta. What I really wanted to do was place them side by side but it seemed a lot to start with something like that, so I scaled back, went to the clay figurines and placed one on the tray.
At the table I lit the candle, lit the incense with the candle flame and placed it in the holder, I hummed after saying the words I’d been taught so long ago, words of magic and power in a now unknown language. Syllable by syllable we had recited it without putting it together: ya-na-bee-sa-lam-ah- lay-kah, ya-na-bee-sa-lam-ah-lay-kah,ya-ha-beeb-sa-lam-ah-lay-kah, sa-la-ma-sa-lam-ah-lay-kah.
In a peaceful state of being, I gently removed the cloth from the figurine and focused. Brown, about the size of my hand, its body a stocky form, arms outstretched, legs and body as one. Impressions dotted the clothing, the face could only be described as ceremonial, stylized, with a round hat pulled down almost to the eyebrows, and jewellery decorating the ears, matching the wide elaborate collar. Eyes closed or blank – just slits really. Mouth downturned so slightly, it looks like a straight line. Nostrils only, very flat nose. I turn the figure in my hand. The back is flat, not to be seen. I imagine a line of these figurines repeated on a frieze or shelf. Where are the others? I wonder.
I note in my book what is seen in the outer examination, but I don’t take a photograph. After notation comes stage 2. Here I sit perfectly still staring at the object for some time. Not moving my eyes over its form and details, but rather sitting with it, eyes open, taking in its totality. Then I close my eyes and see it fully formed and complete in my mind’s eye. Here I see it more fully, outside of time, beyond the single physical iteration.
I look with love and the eyes open to me. They are painted – the whites, the iris, the pupil, all painted. I see these open eyes. I open my own eyes and look again at the figure. Its eyes are closed, it appears inert. I close my eyes again and soon once more I see the figure in my mind, with eyes open. And the mouth which had been a thin line opens. It begins to open wide. So wide that the face is distorted, flattening back, all the way to the back of the head. Inside the wide open mouth is another face, brightly painted in red and white, yellow and black. It looks like an aboriginal mask. Its eyes move from side to side and I hear a loud humming and a steady beat as if a woman stood nearby with rattles and shakers. The beat is insistent, the sound surrounds me, I see the mask-face twist and turn in the open mouth of the figurine.
What do I do now? I ask. How can I know what to do? Then I listen again, and I close my mind’s eye, and only listen. The figure in my mind was not at all small. It was life-sized, larger than me. The size of a very tall, yet stocky, man, like a Mexican wrestler.
The mask face inside the mouth was larger than that, and as it was revealed it seemed to grow from the shell of the figurine like a cactus plant’s flower emerging in a time-lapse video. It looked like the mask face was complete. The humming ended and the shakers became faint, replaced with the sound of a flute. I looked again at my mental image of the mask. It was large and had fully replaced the clay figure which stood crumpled at its feet.
The mask had beautiful flowers all around its head, radiating out as a crown and aurora, brightly painted. It was clear that the mask was a constructed contraption. The eyes clicked as they looked from left to right or centre. The large broad lips were smiling but there was no chin attached that could open the mouth. The whole thing had been brightly painted but without full attention to detail. It looked hurried and I recognized that this was a kind of sketch or notation – someone had quickly shown what the being was like by creating this mask-sketch and implanting it in thought into the figure of clay, for someone to discover. That someone was me!
I sat with this understanding for a while and it moved my mind past the figurine, past the mask, and into another realm entirely. Who had placed this thoughtform in the figurine? What was this? Magic? Sorcery? Shamanism? Art? And why was it placed here? The flute had stopped sounding, the room felt cold, I opened my eyes and looked at the tray. I covered the figurine with its cloth. I thanked it, humming I waved the incense over the tray. Then over myself as a smudge. I picked up the amber and held it in my left hand for a moment, then began my notation on the session.
As if it were a tea ceremony, I dismantled the arrangement on the table one item at a time, and then in a gentle frame of mind I sat back in the chair to absorb what had been shown to me. Inside the figure a second one had been placed. It was waiting for discovery, and as it opened into the world through my consciousness it revealed that it was very old and had been implanted there by another being – a wizard, shaman or priest perhaps. And it was not elaborately done as a work of art but was hurriedly sketched and hidden there. I had the impression that the maker of the figurine was not the same person as the magician who placed the mask. Intrigued, I felt there were clues to be discovered about this old practice. What did it indicate and why was it done? Were there others?
As I put the figurine back on the shelf I thought about subject and object. This was an object with a subject inside it. I had connected them, “I was the verb”, I laughed to myself.
At the time I’d been looking at an object but within it was a subject. What is it really about after all? I looked up parts of speech, made a few notes, trying to find or create context for what had just happened. Back when I was trained, all we did was concentrate on the object fully formed in front of the mind’s eye, then return to the object. We didn’t know about any of the secret doorways or the other inhabitants within the objects. Now I saw that the protagonist was the magician who placed the inner being into the objects as future clues .
A researcher complained that we weren’t really using any of this training for a useful purpose, and it was true – still I practiced this part at home quite a bit because it made me so relaxed after a busy day.
The magician who placed the second object into my terracotta figurine must have been a highly evolved being from the far past. Or perhaps a wizard from the future. I didn’t know of anyone in our current times who could possibly do this. It fascinated me that my favourite pastime practice was coming to the fore in my current quest.
I wanted to look into more of this phenomenon, and it seemed to be a fit with the Project Wunderkabinett efforts. Still hoping for a briefing meeting to understand who else was involved, and still disconcerted by the use of my old name, no longer under cover. I approached HQ looking for some answers.
Security buzzed me right in and someone came to meet me at the interior reception desk immediately. I followed her to the research office, and moved some papers off the only free chair to sit and wait for Dr. Montella. But where to put the papers? Everywhere, all surfaces – desk, chair, shelves – were covered in piles of papers, folder, books and miscellany.
I carefully placed my pile on the edge of the desk, then sat and waited. And waited. Looking at the large school-clock on the wall, I waited. No one opened the door. I heard bustling back and forth, some phones, chat, wheels of the mail service, even what seemed like a dog barking in the distance. That turned my attention to the sounds outside the building, traffic mostly. An ambulance very faintly siren sounding. I stood and opened the door, looking left and right down the hallway. It was empty. Everyone must have gone to lunch. Should I leave? Mantella rushed in, carrying another sheaf of papers, muttering apologies, offering coffee, about to sit at her desk then looking me right in the eye. She reached over to shake my hand before sitting behind the fortress of paperwork swamping even her laptop.
“I know why you’re here, let’s get right to the point. You aren’t supposed to be here. We offer you access to the research area in the warehouse. HQ is off limits to you. That’s why I had to meet you at noon when everyone is out. I can’t tell you more than you already know.” I was about to interrupt her but she put up her hand. “No, let me finish. We don’t have much time. I can’t support you. Openly. You know that. As far as HQ is concerned you are still in Deep Cover, or fired, or however their records have it. We already risked enough just letting you know about Projekt Wunderkabinett, and you are probably here to ask about your name? We don’t know anything about it. Now leave before anyone gets back. You were here to discuss my personal car insurance as I was too busy to go to your office, right?”
I nodded. Stood to leave, felt a wave of nausea, and collapsed on the floor. “Shit,” she said. “Shit, shit, shit. Now sit up.” She pulled me up. “Drink this.” She gave me water. “Stand and leave, NOW.”I was wobbly but I could make it. Then I turned and saw her wavy blurry form dissolve and disappear. I walked along the hallway to the front desk. Closed. Empty. No one there. Made it to the front door and somehow drove home.
“What the hell?” I thought as I wrote my diary account. “This is scary.”