“It is a baby spirit…”
“What sort of baby spirit…?”
“Don’t worry, it will go…”

This pain in my body. It was an ache that spread within my chest… then it moved, gradually but perceptibly, Punditt nodded and said, “baby spirit”.

The torment moved to my head. It was excruciating; the intensity continued for years. The afflictions were there during waking, dreaming and sleeping, they were there when I was drunk, sober, or getting over a hangover. It was there during sex. I learnt to continue life as though nothing untoward was happening. The sufferings would move constantly, and change in size, sometimes growing, sometimes shrinking. When the torments stopped, another would take its place. Eventually I would realise that these spiritual growing torments were preparing me to become a Spirit. The ‘baby’ was myself, the emergent new Self. Eventually spirits would regard me as one of them, but for now I was continuing in misery, wondering when it would end. What was happening was incomprehensible, and the only comfort I got was his insouciance at my suffering.

Dreams became a terrifying experience. Assailed continually by entities of every kind and description – assuming of course that I was able to classify them. My training for a spiritual warrior. Nightly, and with trepidation I went to bed, constantly in physical and mental torment. The attacks would start. While asleep, an entity nearly killed me with a knife. I woke up for a few seconds, and decided to go back to sleep. Instantly I was back with the spirit, who was so surprised that I had the advantage, and I could kill it. Nightly I took part in massacres. I also found allies, and sometimes I was teaching spirits. As I lay in bed awake, I was aware of an entity lying next to me. Female spirits would occasionally appear in dreams, and they would often have sex with me.

As I was shaving and looking into the mirror, I ‘saw’ Valefor, unsure what to do. After a few seconds, Valefor vanished. My mental, emotional and spiritual state had not changed.

Not only was I in continuous pain, but it was costing me a fortune in books that never gave me the answer. The curious thing was as I read these books, I would recognise the spiritual experiences – I had already had them, they were merely confirming what I was already undergoing. 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 visit 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 then 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 cling-film, was a grubby second-hand copy of Outside the Circles of Time by Kenneth Grant. The price was £50, very expensive. I read most of it on the crowded train to Manchester. We continued to drink. After a week, we visited 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. On a walk, and with trepidation, I performed this operation. My mood lifted, and when I got back to the house, he 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 I cannot remember what it was that I did that afternoon in Liverpool.

I said, “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 magickal research. He 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 related what the mistakes were, but when I mentioned them, he would nod sagely, and silently fix them. Occasionally, I would perceive a Goetic spirit, and sometimes it would ask me to do something. Sometimes I would ask a Goetic spirit to help me on something. Now and then, I would perceive several spirits together. Appearances could happen in 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 glimpse it 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.

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 lounge of my flat. One evening, as he sat on the sofa, whisky glass in hand, I returned, and there in the doorway, stood a ‘Grey’ about two feet tall, and as solid as any material object. 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 returned where Punditt was chatting with my brother, but he looked up as I entered. I said nothing, but turned around back to the kitchen. Who was going to believe that I saw a Gray 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 to him.

On a newsgroup there was news of an exhibition in London of Aleister Crowley’s paintings. 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 place the print on the wall of my living room. I hung it up by my computer, A few minutes later, Pundit telephoned, warning me of a Jinn problem – he never rang to warn me like this. I had barely put the phone down when the PC crashed spectacularly. I put Aiwass in 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.