Learning about Spirits with Punditt Maharaj
My personal situation was never easy. Money was tight, and I seemed to be assailed by enemies from all directions. One day walking down the road with Punditt during a particularly difficult time, I burst into tears. Punditt swore, and threatened to abandon me there and then. That was my lesson on stoicism, as if I needed one.
The Work between the Master and the Student is also Silent. It took many years before I realised that I had to talk about some of my experiences, and then only with a few selected friends who seemed to be on a similar Path. With time I began to see that I have to talk about my experiences to a wider audience, knowing that I have no way of providing ‘proof’. Naturally, Punditt was silent on whether I had permission to divulge certain experiences. The pact we had between us was as always tacit and unspoken.
Paradoxically, the Goetia have been the most vocal of the spirits I work with. Certainly, they were almost always the easiest to recognise
The Goetic Journey
There are seminal moments on the Goetic journey. Mine happened in my early twenties on a bright sunny, but cool late morning in Brighton, so it was probably in the autumn. We were walking slowly down Western Road. My teacher Punditt Maharaj was in his fifties, he was barely five feet high, round face, and dark lustrous hair. We rarely had ‘conversations’ – even at this early stage I knew I was never going to write a book on the “Discourses with my Master”. The long silences were profound, but my mind rarely penetrated the depths. We were walking slowly past an empty bus stop; nobody was there. Suddenly my head swivelled, but I saw nothing. Punditt smiled, “A spirit said ‘good morning’”. I grunted.
One evening we were in his small flat. Once again I was sitting there wondering what I was doing. I still had no idea who Punditt really was, and what he was doing. I was considering saying something about making a move, going back to my flat to sleep or watch TV. Punditt looked at me intently; he pointed and said, “This spirit sitting next to me is teaching you…” I was too nonplussed to say anything coherent. Besides, I already knew my questions would not elicit anything.
Systematically, my old life (I was barely into my twenties) was being dismantled. Every belief, tenet, way of life, work, friendships, social life, thoughts and ideas were ruthlessly, and sometimes brutally destroyed. Occasionally, something was put in place, but generally I was in a nihilistic state. Punditt smiled enigmatically. When I met him, I was vegetarian, teetotal, and meditating 3 hours twice a day while holding down a poorly paid office job. Later I would see that I was heading for a nervous breakdown. I was regularly trying to sup as many lagers as Punditt before Closing Time in the days when the pubs would close at 3pm. I never did manage to keep up with him. In the evening we would cook a very hot chicken curry while we worked through a bottle of Black Label or vodka. By now I had been evicted from the Meditation Centre on trumped up charges. I was past caring.
The Power of the Baby Spirit
One day, soon after the previous events, or more likely non-experiences, I got this pain in my body. It was an ache that spread within my chest… then it moved, gradually but perceptibly. By now, Punditt and I had a simple sign language system. I pointed to where the pain was, and he nodded.
“It is a baby spirit…”
“What sort of baby spirit…?”
“A baby spirit… don’t worry, it will go…”
That baby spirit stayed with me for years.
The pain moved to my head. It was excruciating. The intensity of the pains (yes, there could be more than one at the same time), continued for years. The pains were there during waking, dreaming and sleeping. The pains were there when I was drunk, sober, or getting over a hangover. The pains were there during sex. I learnt to continue life as though nothing untoward was going on. The pains would move constantly, and change in size, sometimes growing, sometimes shrinking. When a pain stopped, another would take its place. Eventually I would realise that these spiritual growing pains were preparing me to become a Spirit. The ‘baby’ spirit was myself, the emergent new Self. In time, spirits would see me as one of them, but for now I was continuing in misery, wondering when it would end. However, at that time, what was happening was incomprehensible, and the only comfort I got was Punditt’s insouciance at my suffering.
Dreams became a terrifying experience. I was assailed continually by spirits of every kind and description – assuming of course that I was able to classify them. I was being trained to be a spiritual warrior. Nightly, and with trepidation I went to bed, constantly in physical and mental pain. The attacks would start. One night, a spirit nearly killed me with a knife. I woke up, lay for a few seconds, and decided to go back to sleep. Instantly I was back with the spirit, who was so surprised to see me, that I had the advantage, and I could kill it. Nightly I witnessed, and took part in massacres. I also found allies, and sometimes I was teaching spirits. Sometimes, as I lay in bed awake, I was aware of a spirit lying next to me. Female spirits would occasionally appear in dreams, and they would often have sex with me.
One day, as I was shaving and looking into the mirror, I ‘saw’ a spirit in my mind. He said his name was ‘Valefor’. I mentally nodded, unsure what to do. After a few seconds, Valefor vanished. My mental, emotional and spiritual state had not changed. I was curious, but I did not know where to find more information, as there was no point in asking Punditt.
This was the cue to start desperately devouring books on magic in an attempt to make sense of my experiences. I came across the big Llewellyn paperback on the Golden Dawn teachings. From there, the writings of Aleister Crowley mesmerised me, and then to Kenneth Grant.
My spiritual journey was really rubbing salt into the wounds. Not only was I in continuous pain, but it was costing me a fortune in books that never quite gave me the answer. The curious thing was as I read these books, I would recognise the spiritual experiences – I had already had them. The books were merely confirming what I was already going through. However, I was not a member of a Lodge, I was not performing any magical rituals (there was nobody to work with). I had no magical weapons either. For a while I tried doing the banishing rituals, but I quickly lost interest.
Punditt had to go to Manchester to see some of his relatives. He was not in the best of health, and he wanted me to go with him. Somehow, I got out of this obligation, but after week he phoned me insisting that I come up. While crossing from Victoria to Euston, I visited my new favourite bookshop, Atlantis, by the British Museum. On the shelf wrapped in clingfilm, was a grubby second hand copy of Outside the Circles of Time by Kenneth Grant. The price was £50, very expensive, but I knew that if I did not get it, it would not be there the next time. I read most of the book on the crowded train to Manchester. My time with his family was pleasant – they naturally cooked better curry than Punditt, and their chapattis were perfect circles. We continued to drink. After a week, we went to see his relatives in Liverpool. By now his health had deteriorated, and he lay on a mattress on the floor in a bare room in the third floor of a large Victorian house. I did not know what to do. He was my master – how could I help him? I remembered something in Outside the Circles of Time, and after some effort found the passage. Grant made it very clear that this particular operation should not be undertaken under any circumstances. By now, I had run through the limited repertoire of spiritual healing I was capable of. I had no choice. Punditt was getting worse, and I was worried that he would not pull through. I went for a walk, and with trepidation, I performed this operation. My mood lifted, and when I got back to the house, Punditt was clearly better. Exalted, I grabbed the book to check and see if there was anything I could do, or I had omitted to do. The passage had disappeared… I could not find it, and with the passing of time, I cannot remember what it was that I did that afternoon in Liverpool.
However, this experience gave me the confidence to begin my magical and spiritual journey in earnest. I would search out magical techniques that were considered to be very dangerous, and invariably a time would come when I had to use those techniques, always without a safety net.
One day, I said to Punditt, “I realise I have to do these things myself.” He nodded, “If you make a mistake, don’t worry, I will fix it.” Naturally, we had never discussed my magical research into these books. Punditt has the patience of Job. Every morning when we met up, he would have to correct the mistakes I had made the previous night. I never said what the mistakes were, but when I mentioned them, he would nod sagely, and silently fix them. Occasionally, I would see a Goetic spirit, and sometimes the spirit would ask me to do something. Sometimes I would ask a Goetic spirit to help me on something. Now and then, I would see several Goetic spirits together. Appearances could happen at any time of the day or night, and I could be walking down the road, or sitting in the pub in various states of intoxication. Invariably I would see the spirit exactly as described in the literature, and I would often ‘see’ its name. If I remembered, I would look up the name in the book when I got home. I had an understanding or rapport with the Goetia, but I could not always say what was really going on.
By now pretty much any and every incident in my life with Punditt was deemed to be something to do with spirits. One day, as I was about to cross a busy road, a spirit pushed me in the back, trying to kill me under the wheels of a car. Spirits would prevent clients from coming for readings. Things would often fly off the shelf in the kitchen when I was in the living room of my flat with Punditt. One evening, as Punditt sat on the sofa, whisky glass in hand, I went into the kitchen, and there in the doorway, stood a ‘Grey’ about two feet tall, and as solid as any material object. I looked down at him, and he looked up, he was making points with his finger, as if remonstrating, however no words could be heard. I stood there slightly nonplussed for a few seconds as I was lectured by this Grey, then I decided to go back into the living room. Punditt was chatting with my brother, but he looked up as I entered. I said nothing, but turned around and went back to the kitchen. The Grey had disappeared; I did not even bother looking for him, as I reflected that people had written bestsellers on lesser experiences. Who was going to believe that I saw a Grey in my flat – where was his flying saucer? How did he get in? It wasn’t as if I had surgery done on me. I don’t think I ever mentioned this incident with Punditt.
I had got onto the internet in the early days, and on a newsgroup there was news of an exhibition in London of Aleister Crowley’s paintings. I naturally went, and I purchased a limited edition print of Aiwass as a memento. I took it home, and for some reason kept it in the paper bag on top of the cupboard of my bedroom. After a few months, I decided to put the print on the wall of my living room. I put it up by my computer, a Pentium 75. A few minutes later, Punditt telephoned, warning me of a spirit problem – he never rang to warn me like this. I had barely put the phone down when the computer crashed spectacularly. Aiwass was returned to his wrapping on top of the cupboard. For a week, nothing I did could resuscitate my computer. Then, it suddenly worked again, as if nothing had ever been wrong with it.
After a few months, I got the courage to put Aiwass back on the wall, this time without incident. A few days later Punditt came round for one of our regular curry and whisky evenings. He saw the picture smiled and said, “Spirit”. Aiwass was smiling too.