to alchemical terminology means that my original hand-written diary included a number of traditional alchemical symbols for the elements, planets and qualities, and in this edition I have replaced these symbols with their written names—not so mystical looking, but easier to typeset!
I cannot say whether these explanations will convey much to the reader—they do not always mean much to me now forty years later—but at least this explanation might give the reader some idea of what was happening to me. If it does, then it will add value to what might otherwise be a boring description of one man's struggle with everyday routine.
Watching the watcher
One other expression that turns up from time to time is “watch the watcher”. I thought I got this idea from reading The Kybalion, but do not see it there. It is said somewhere that Hermetic teaching tells us to “Watch the watcher. Judge the judge. Examine the examiner.” I have often found this principle very helpful when meditating.
When I first tried to meditate in my earlier years the usual thing happened: I tried to quieten my mind but soon found it was buzzing with ideas and that I simply had no success in controlling this fountain of thought. It was Gerald Yorke who taught me that the trick was not to try to block thoughts, but simply to observe them arising in a detached manner. When you do that the stream does start to dry up.
“Watch the watcher” suggests something similar. When you sit in meditation you become aware of all that is going on inside you—it is apparently uncontrollable. But then you ask yourself how is it possible to be aware of all this? How can one single consciousness be simultaneously busy and aware that it is busy? Then you realise that there is another “higher” part of you that is watching this flow. Thus you discover “two fish in the sea”: a consciousness and a watcher or over-seer.
How do you become aware of this “higher” part and the division between the two? It is because there is an even higher part of you that is watching and observing that there are these two parts within you…And so the meditation can lead one gently up a ladder of awareness to ever purer, simpler forms of consciousness.
This is what I am referring to when I use terms like “watching the watcher”.
To sum up: even when there is very little to report in my diary, I was throughout most days attempting to cultivate an ongoing state of detached awareness. This state came to a sharper focus during my twice or thrice daily orations and, not having an adequate language to describe the effects, I could sometimes only refer to them in this semi-alchemical language.
“Obsessions incarnating”
I was undecided whether it was better to edit out some passages where I use my diary as a sort of therapy exorcism—because these were too personal to be of interest to the reader—or whether I should leave them in, simply as examples of how psychological issues come up during the months of preparation. I asked the advice of my editor, and decided to leave them in, here are some explanations of the background to the most obvious obsessions.
Snobbery
Reading this diary again after forty years, I was at first puzzled by the early references to my “snobbery”. What was that about? Snobbery is not something that I identify with, but when I thought back to that time it came back to me.
This was the 1970s when the hippy era I had grown up in was evolving towards the decay that was Thatcherism. In the 60s and early 70s there was a rebellion against “the system” that most people were trapped in, and a move for some to “drop out”. Although I was not a dedicated drop-out, I had difficulty finding work that really suited me, and had extended periods “on the dole”, claiming state unemployment payments. At those times, I met many people who were no longer contributing to society in the accepted economic sense but were, in my opinion, contributing a lot in other ways. These included people following a mystical path; or those spending time in groups discussing society's norms and considering alternatives (a sort of informal version of academia that sometimes developed into “free schooling”). And there were those who, being free of nine-to-five work restrictions, were able to be more active and valuable citizens at a local level. There are examples of this in my diary, when I was at home all day instead of using the village as a dormitory between days working in London: I was able to offer coffee and conversation to an elderly and recently widowed neighbour—one example of how I became a better citizen, more engaged in our neighbourhood.
When the media began to push the Thatcherite division of society into “decent hard-working citizens” versus “layabout drop-out scroungers”, I was angry. I would never claim that no-one has ever dropped out simply to become a parasite, but I rebelled against the prejudice that being out of work labelled one as a worthless human being. I felt a temptation to go around telling everyone that, yes, I had dropped out of regular employment, but that I was doing it for superior spiritual reasons, etc., etc., and this was not to be confused with good-for-nothing parasitism.
This was, of course, just the sort of subtle temptation that one can meet as one begins such an operation—a desire to boast and draw attention just when one ought to be retiring and becoming invisible. It emerged initially in a form that I labelled “snobbery” and, although I resisted it during the operation, it returned in a purer form afterwards and had to be more properly dealt with, as I will explain in the postscript.
Lust
This was a much more lovable demon—it was, after all, the 1970s when fewer lovers would be taken as a sign of weakness rather than restraint. I was relieved that Abramelin only demanded absolute celibacy for the last two months, and I think I managed that, even if I could not control my dreams.
The resulting sex dreams were wonderful, and a real insight into the succubi torments experienced by mediaeval monks. At first I saw them as a bonus rather than a distraction, but when my dream lovers began to suggest that there was really no need to rise and meditate at sunrise—and far better to linger in bed and enjoy more sex—then I realised what was going on!
What about the general mystic's requirement not to indulge in sinful behaviour? Well, from a 1970s perspective sex was anything but sinful, it was a celebration of life, a near religious act and, if we had once been exhorted to pray continuously, then surely it was only the limits of bodily existence that prevented us from fucking continuously? I had no problem with the occasional sexual adventure during the first four months.
Physical deterioration
Re-reading my concerns about weight loss was much more of a shock to me, because this was, and still remains in a lesser degree, a very deeply ingrained concern.
I can now trace it back to the classic astrological observation that Sun in Aries and an excess of the fire element in the chart tends to accompany a split between body and spirit, and illusions about one's appearance that may be similar to the delusions driving anorexia and other eating disorders. In my case I have always seen myself as much smaller and frailer than others’ image of me.
For those who spend a lot of time trying to reduce weight, this might seem a positive blessing. But I was born in 1945 and so have very early memories of news about what was discovered in post-war Germany with horrific images of skeletal corpses and survivors from Nazi death camps. I cannot describe what that meant, I was too young to process the information, but it left me with a very profound sense of evil. When, many years later, I went with a friend to visit her mother in hospital and saw how terminal cancer can reduce a healthy body to a gaunt and tremulous skeleton, I felt utter physical revulsion and a rebellion of my spirit against the flesh and its privations. Most people would be moved to compassion, and I was too, but my compassion was overwhelmed
