Gate: The Devil
I stepped through the vision gate and was standing on a busy highway. Cars flew past, their drivers honking their horns aggressively at my sudden appearance in their midst. I floated above this road so as not to further anger the residents of the realm and began to follow it towards the city center.
The highway led to a vast modern city with high rise buildings, endless roadways, and an enormous traffic jam. As I flew past the parked cars towards the city center, I saw hopeless people angrily banging on their horns, trying to traverse a roadway that was permanently clogged. Homeless spirits occupied every green corner of the city and their eyes were empty of any emotion but a deep seated hunger.
Professionals of every age and level of affluence walked past the homeless residents of their city as if they weren’t even there, tossing their trash consisting of cups, newspapers and cigarette butts on the sidewalks where the less fortunate spirits ran to draw every bit of goodness, even from the trash of civilization. I drifted down the sidewalks as ephemeral as a cloud of smoke among these suffering people, feeling my own hope draining from me at their sad plight.
“I should never have left the forest to wander among these iron-souled men and women,” I thought to myself as I gazed into one empty face after another. “My heart isn’t hard enough for it.”
Having no particular destination in mind, I flew towards the tallest building at the very center of the city and entered its shining glass revolving door. A young receptionist sat behind a desk and she was the first to see me. I landed on the hard tile floor and kept my feet carefully on the ground like a normal person of the world as she greeted me with a smile.
“Who are you and who have you come to see?” she asked, pleasantly.
“My name is Heidi and I have come seeking the nature of this place,” I replied. “I have no particular name in mind as I’ve never been here before.”
The receptionist clicked a few buttons on her computer keyboard. “You are expected and rather late,” she said, still friendly and welcoming. “Go to the 59th floor.”
I went to a long bank of elevators that stood just beyond the young lady’s desk. One of the elevator doors opened with a ding and inside a faun with an old fashioned jacket on his torso and a jaunty bell boy cap on his head between delicate curling horns stood, guarding the elevator’s controls. He raised one of his hooves to scratch the back of his leg as I entered the elevator to stand beside him.
“Which floor?” he asked, his mouth moving as if he was chewing gum.
“The 59th,” I replied. He pushed the appropriate button and away we went.
Elevator music played softly through hidden speakers. My shyness kicked in and I didn’t know where to look so I kept my eyes on the faun and my own reflections in the metal elevator doors. He stood in companionable silence and stillness, a consummate professional. Soon enough, before I had the chance to get really uncomfortable, the doors opened with another bright ding.
My knowledge of business etiquette returned to me and I reached into my pockets to see if I had anything with which to tip the faun, but to my surprise I only had generous handfuls of small metal sprockets, bolts, and screws upon my person.
“I’m sorry that I don’t have any coins…” I started to say when the faun reached over and took a handful of metal. He popped the mess into his mouth and began chewing contentedly as he had been when I entered his elevator.
“Have a nice day,” he said, between crunches, and the elevator door closed.
I found myself in a dark office that took up the entire floor. Ahead, there was a bank of windows shrouded with thick, concealing drapes. In front of these drapes, someone smoked at a desk with a large swivel chair made of leather.
“Come on in, Heidi,” said a familiar voice and the chair turned. My shadow self was seated comfortably and smoking a cigar, shrouded in smoke and her natural darkness.
“Hello again, Shadow,” I said. “Never a pleasure to see you again, but here we are.”
“Look at our city,” she announced and drew back the drapes from the window behind her. “Isn’t it a glorious tribute to the great civilizations of the world?”
I looked out upon the world beyond my shadow. It was polluted and gray with concrete and buildings as far as the eye could see. The unhappy residents of the city moved through the streets in crowds both on foot and in pollution-spouting vehicles. I felt as if I could see their suffering rising from the ground like a fog. “Could you tell me what you love about it?” I asked after a time. “I’m not particularly fond of it myself.”
“I see progress,” Shadow inhaled on her cigar and blew out the smoke towards me. “I see business and growth. I see civilization expanding infinitely. I see the triumph of man over nature.”
“I wish there were more trees,” I said simply and shut the curtains on the scene.
When I threw them open again, a jungle’s growth had blanketed the city. Trees grew from the tops of buildings and flocks of birds flew between the high rises. Primates swung from branches while a river flowed down one of the streets. It teemed with fish and other wildlife gathered on its banks to drink from its fresh, flowing water.
Shadow frowned at my adjustments.
“This is MY city,” she declared and shut the drapes on the jungle world. When she threw them open again, we were back to the pollution, concrete, and filth.
“Sit with me,” said Shadow and indicated a chair that appeared on the other side of the desk. “Haven’t I always been your best servant, Heidi?” she said as I took a seat opposite of her.
“In what way, Shadow?” I asked.
“I break and you build,” Shadow grinned, puffing away at her cigar. “What would there be to do without me?”
“But if we look at it another way,” I replied. “Haven’t I been your best friend? What would there be to break if there wasn’t balance first?”
“Paradise,” said Shadow with a toothy grin. Suddenly, a crack appeared in the air above Shadow’s ornate desk.
“What is this?” I asked as I put my finger to the rip in reality.
With a sound like glass shattering, the tear spread and the vision of my Shadow smoking a cigar split into a thousand pieces like an enormous mirror cracking and falling to dust.
The pieces fell to the ground and a raging, winged monster made of darkness and smoke rose from the broken mirror. He was bound by his hands and neck by thick golden chains that kept him tied to the ground. Roaring, he growled and pulled against his bonds.
Then, he saw me as I stood in surprise with my mouth open and my hand still raised in the air to where the rip in reality had been.
“Who are you?” The devil hissed and flapped his enormous, ragged wings. “Have you come to torment me further?”
“My name is Heidi,” I said when I recovered my voice. “Who are you?”
“I answer no questions until you free me,” he roared and continued to strain at the chains.
“Well, that’s not fair at all,” I said. “I answered your question.”
“Life isn’t fair, foolish mortal,” the devil sneered at me. “However did you get this far without knowing that simple truth?”
“There’s no need to be rude about it,” I said. “Fine, if you answer three of my questions truthfully, then I will release you from your chains.”
The monster squinted at me. “Who shall determine the truth of my response?” he said. “I don’t believe you’re capable of it.”
“I’m as capable as the next person,” I said. “But I am unaccustomed to dealing with monsters and shadow. Thank goodness I know someone who is. Michael!” I called and my silver armored angel appeared at my side.
“This spirit can determine truth from falsehoods,” I said. “In fact, it is one of his specialties. Shall we begin?” The monster and Michael nodded their heads in unison which disconcerted me a moment but I allowed the feeling to pass.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“Your worst nightmare,” hissed the monster. I looked at Michael and he nodded once, slowly.
The chain disappeared from the monster’s right claw and he capered with pleasure. “Next question!” he demanded.
“What do you represent in the Inner Worlds?” I asked.
“I am change without choosing and influence from without instead of within. I am the tyrant with all the power,” he said. “I am the father who hates his children for being born because he does not know how he will feed them, clothe them, and shelter them. I am the husband who blames his wife for all of life’s troubles.”
Michael nodded again at the truth in the words and the chain disappeared from the creature’s left claw. The monster was beside himself now with glee. He danced in circles as fire dripped from his eyes and sparks flew from the tips of his mighty wings. “Your last question, Heidi,” he hissed. “Then you and all your spiritual explorations will be mine.”
“I doubt that, fiend, but let’s finish this with a multi-part question. What do you desire more than anything else?” I asked. “What are the secret dreams of your heart? Whom do you love?”
“Your eternal death!” He roared and reached towards me with venom-tipped claws. I held my ground as Michael shook his head, negatively.
“The angel says you lie,” I said and the golden chains re-appeared not only on the devil’s hands but now also on his cloven hooves. The collar around the beast’s furry neck doubled in size.
“Your suffering is what I desire more than anything,” he pleaded. “To see you burn in the fires of hell itself and live a life without love. I speak the truth.”
Michael pulled his fiery sword from his belt and broke his silence. “Heidi represents self-knowledge through conscious choice in this place and also freedom to live the life of your dreams, whatever that may be,” he said. “You, on the other hand, are formed of only shadow and know only bondage and torment. What you desire most is not her death, but your own and the end of your torment.”
“You lie,” the devil cried. “You lie, you lie, you LIE. Only shadow may judge shadow. Return to your rarefied sphere and leave me to my existence such as it is.”
“The moment you lay a claw on this spirit, you would disappear back into the oblivion that you crawled from,” my guardian angel said. “You know this, I know this, the only person who doesn’t know this is Heidi. Thank God I was here.”
“Your distant god has nothing to do with this,” the devil hissed. “You tricked me, you shining mosquito.” Michael raised his sword to the beast’s throat angrily.
“Speak once more and I will grant your deepest desire, fiend,” he said. “What do you wish to do with this pathetic creature, Heidi?”
I looked at the angel’s sword and then at the chained monster. “Despite any past actions he may have committed and his malevolent intentions towards me, I feel pity for this being,” I said. “Is there no safe way to contain him? Violence is not my path.”
“There is always another way if the path before you is not one you desire,” said the angel and pulled a diamond from the hilt of his great sword. He raised his weapon over the head of the creature where it grew large and hovered over the beast.
“You promised me freedom, Heidi, if I answered your questions. You are the liar, not me!” the devil howled. “Hide behind your angel all you like, my continued torment lies upon your head.” Then, with a rushing wind, the beast was sucked up into Michael’s diamond.
The diamond changed color from clear to as dark as the devil’s wings had been. Then, the stone returned to Michael’s hand and he put it back into the hilt of his sword.
“Thank you for the assistance,” I said. “What was that thing?”
“He is a traditional guardian at the gates of this temple,” the angel replied and gestured at the gathered shadows around us.
Torches appeared on either side of a hallway made of giant bricks that led to a pyramid. Where the beast had been standing on the threshold of this hall, there was a great seal upon the floor that bore his likeness. I touched this seal and my hand was covered with thick gray ash.
The walls on either side of the passageway were covered with the ashy handprints of those who had passed this way before me. I placed my hand against the bricks and left my print beside the others. Then, Michael and I walked deeper into the temple side by side in silence.
The torchlight flickered over the passage walls and revealed painted scenes of men and women struggling with giant serpents and monsters made of darkness and shadow. Sometimes, they succeeded in banishing the creatures. Other times, they did not.
At the end of the long entry hall, my angel and I passed into a large, open chamber with more torches. To the left and right of the room, mounds of treasure appeared. Gold, jewels, statues and priceless artifacts were piled in unorganized heaps as if they were nothing more than trash.
“Welcome, seeker,” said a voice from the far end of the treasure room. “Welcome to the Temple of Self Knowledge.”
A single ray of light shone down upon a giant golden statue of a seated woman who was dressed as a pharaoh with a headdress of a striking cobra rising from her brow. The voice came from this statue.
I bowed my head respectfully towards her. “Great One,” I said. “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.”
The eyes to the golden statue flew open and a piercing red light flowed out of them. In the light from the statue’s eyes, I discovered that I could not move. Words continued to come from the statue and I could answer them only with my thoughts.
“This room contains the wealth of the mind,” the voice said. “Countless, innumerable treasures are stored within the soul for those who seek them. When one begins on the quest inward, the seeker has many reasons for the search. There are the reasons that she tells herself and there are the reasons she does not accept. The reasons that are not acknowledged are bound here at the entrance to this temple and act as a guardian to the next spirit who braves these halls.”
“If the seeker makes it this far,” continued the voice of the golden statue. “She must face these subconscious reasons and either vanquish them or be driven mad by her own delusions.”
The statue raised her arms in a deadly benediction. “I am the final guardian. You will answer me now: in what way did you pass your shadow creation?” she asked. “Are you conqueror or conquered? Do you dwell in light or shadow?”
“I offered to free the monster from his chains if he would tell me the truth,” I said with my mind. “He did not, so my guardian captured him in a precious gemstone which he embedded in his righteous sword.”
The golden statue of the ancient Egyptian goddess laughed. Her light turned from red to white and then her eyes shut completely and I discovered I was able to move freely once more.
“That is a novel way to pass through the Shadow,” said another voice. “She doesn’t know the truth and she cannot tell what the shadow does and does not know.”
“You have passed the final test and you may enter,” the statue said. “Welcome to our host.” The golden statue split down the middle and a spirit emerged from the center of the guardian.
In her arms, the Egyptian goddess carried someone who looked exactly like me. This version of myself was so deeply asleep that my limbs swayed gently back and forth with the goddess’ steps as I followed the spirit deeper into the temple.
“You have earned a place with the Sleepers,” the goddess said. “All is prepared for your arrival.” We came to another open room with an enormous bath tub in its center that was filled with liquid gold that bubbled and frothed.
“First, you are to be bathed in the gold of the conscious mind,” she said and put the sleeping version of myself into the liquid where I was coated from head to toe in a golden sheen.
“Next, you join the others in the space that has been set for you,” the goddess said as she lifted my form from the liquid and we moved into another room. As far as I could see in this new area, there were couches upon which numerous golden figures reclined, deeply asleep. The goddess arranged the someone who looked like me on one of the couches.
“Who are the other Sleepers, Great One?” I asked. “There are so many of them.”
“Anyone who has ever entered the Temple of Self Knowledge and passed through the shadow is brought here,” she said. “A part of them remains here for all time. They are the Sleepers. They are the Knowers. They are the Dreamers of the one dream from the many and now you are a Sleeper too.”
“Is there a way to communicate with this host?” I asked. “This Sleeping Congress? Dream walking is not numbered among my strengths.”
“In that place, you may commune with the Sleepers with your eyes open and theirs,” the goddess said, gesturing and a great golden bubble appeared, floating between the couches to the very center of the room. It delicately moved up and down in the breaths from the sleeping figures.
“My thanks, Great One,” I said. “I would never have figured out a way to communicate with the Sleepers without you.” The goddess bowed her head in acknowledgement and vanished. Michael appeared in the goddess’ place at my side and we moved carefully around the room until we reached the bubble.
“Go within, Heidi,” he said and handed me his sword with the devil’s diamond gleaming in the hilt. “I will wait for you.”
“Thank you, Michael,” I said, giving him a hug. “Hopefully I will not be overly long.” Then, I passed through the golden bubble into a space that resembled the Roman senate.
A single figure stood before a murmuring crowd dressed in togas with lining of various hues. “The question stands: do we make the secret ways common knowledge so that all can walk towards self-knowing or do we continue to conceal the paths for only the worthy?” she said. “What say you, the Sleeping Congress?”
There was a rumble of conversation and then everyone moved towards one side of the room, except for one slight figure who stood apart. “As you well know, our vote must be unanimous,” the speaker said to the solitary person.
The woman smiled. “There is no danger in the divulgence of occult secrets. The unworthy will cast the knowledge aside as useless and the uninterested will dismiss it as trivial. The way protects itself,” she said.
An explosion of conversations erupted on the other side of the room. “I will never change my mind,” she continued, over the noise. “And I have all eternity to await your decision, so take your time.” With that, the woman sat down on her side of the senate.
“I agree with this person,” I announced and moved to her side.
“As the newest member of our Host,” said the Speaker, contemptuously. “Why should we put stock in your opinion?”
“Because, despite numerous obstacles and no living teacher, I found my way down the path and to this august company,” I said.
“This lady is right in that, those who are interested in such knowledge will find it. Those who are looking to abuse it, will never be able to pass the guardian of the temple gate,” I continued. “If there are ever to be any future seekers, we must release this path-walking knowledge or there will never be another addition to this host again.”
The woman shook my hand as I concluded my speech. “My name is Dion Fortune,” she said. “What might your name be?”
“My name is Heidi and I am very pleased to make your acquaintance,” I said. “I know your name from my studies, my lady, of course.”
When Dion released my hand, some of her natural inner light rubbed off onto me and, in the palm of my hand, the imprint of a six-pointed star shone.
“The teachers will come over first,” she said as a few split from the other group and came towards us. “Though this issue will probably be in debate for some time.” I agreed with her assessment.
Dion leaned close. “I envy you something,” she said.
“What might that be?” I asked.
“You live in a time of technology. You may spread what you have learned on the breath of the ether with your machines,” she said. “How I wish that I had lived in the age of miracles. In my lifetime, those interested in these ways had to look very far and very carefully to find those who shared their beliefs. Even then, there was the threat of persecution or worse,” Dion took my hand once more and pressed it. “Be a teacher. Share these ways. Promise me, Heidi.”
“I will do my best to do as you ask,” I said. “I swear it.”
Then, I blinked and was standing before the window in the high rise with my shadow once more. She was still smoking her cigar.
“Look at our city,” said Shadow, as she had said once before, and she gestured proudly to the polluted landscape. “Isn’t it a glorious tribute to the civilizations of the earth?”
I sighed at Shadow’s obstinate blindness to my interpretation of our shared reality. “Would you do me the honor of shaking my hand?” I asked. I grasped Shadow’s claw and my palm shone with Dion’s six-pointed star.
The light from the star in my hand rapidly spread up Shadow’s arm. She looked at me in surprise and, for one brief moment, I was looking into a mirror image of myself and all of the shadows were banished. Then, my reflection disappeared in a large flash of light like a picture was being taken.
I shut the drapes on the Shadow’s city and opened them again to see my jungle version of the same. Nature reclaimed the streets and life as well as abundance returned to a world that had lain so long in filth and despair. Day had turned to night while I ventured through the temple and the clouds of city pollution cleared as stars shone brightly down from a clear night sky.
I heard the voice of the Divine Mother speaking to me from the stars:
Wake the Sleepers from their rest,
And then the stars shine bright.
Unleash the knowledge of the path,
The leads straight through the night.
The Shadows bold will rant and rave,
On the path ahead,
Be certain in the knowledge of,
My blessings in their stead.
“See Shadow?” I whispered as I pressed my forehead to the glass. “It is my city after all and I say it belongs to the world.”
There my vision ended.
The Light Congress 