Autohagiography 3

  In junior high school I began to develop an interest in the occult. It started with one of those mass market paperbacks with a title like "Black Magic Spells" or something, probably picked up at the local Revco drug store. Of course I would never have dreamed of actually putting a curse on somebody, but it was fascinating anyway. I scoured the local libraries for books on magic and witchcraft. I purchased a copy of Aleister Crowley's "Confessions" and considered myself a follower, though I had little real understanding of what he taught.

  Once a friend and I were taking a walk through an old part of town and we passed by one of those dingy time store front shops. This one was called "The Occult Shop". Virtually everything in the shop was black, including the walls. There were apparently two owners, one named Steven Patrick and the other Patrick Stevens. Or so I was told. They could have been twins, dark-haired and bearded beatnik types. And there on the shelf was Aleister Crowley's "Magick in Theory and Practice". I couldn't afford the book, but struck up a conversation with Pat. He mentioned that he was considering having a mural painted on the wall. I mentioned that I was an artist and he suggested that if I painted him a mural he would pay me off in books. It was a deal! I painted the image of Baphomet from Eliphas Levi's book "Dogma and Rituals of High Magic" on the wall. From the torch on his head I painted stars fanning out up the wall and spreading over the whole ceiling. I was paid with "Magic in Theory and Practice" and a few other books on occult topics.

  From that time I started hanging out with Pat. He lived in an old house in a poor neighborhood that had been taken over by hippies. He actually had a magic circle burned into the floor. Magical implements hung on the walls, such as a large ritual sword. One day we were working at the shop when Pat got a phone call from his wife. She said she thought someone had got into the house. She had heard some noises. He told her to take the sword and look around. Nobody was there and the doors were all locked. "It must just be George", he said.

  Afterward I asked him, "Who's George?" He said George was the ghost who haunted the house. Indeed there we various odd noises and goings on in that house. At the time I thought it was ghosts and elementals. Now I'm pretty sure they were demons. One time I stayed the night and crashed on an old bare mattress in an upstairs room. There was no light in the room so I lay down with the door open. A light bulb burned in the hallway outside the door. Before I could even put my head down there a loud bang emanated from the space right between the mattress and the door and I felt an invisible presence. Having studied the works of Crowley and other ritual magicians I knew it was important to show no fear to demons or other spiritual entities. I sat up and said, "I'm not afraid of you!" The presence was gone and I put my head down to sleep peacefully.

  Through my late teens, my time in the Navy and on into college after, I considered myself a student of the occult. Now I am convinced that the Holy Spirit, infused in my baptism and confirmation, preserved me from the many dangers of flirting with the occult. In my next installment I'll tell about how I progressed from the occult to Eastern religions.