Carl Ellis Journal February 1929

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Wednesday, 27 February 1929 -- Wisphers Estate - Chalone-Sur-Saone, France

Goodbye Carl. In a few minutes we shall be leaving for the funeral, and I shall have to say goodbye once and for all to a very dear friend.

It seems as though, in some ways, his death has not been official until now. Not final. In my heart, like Zelda, I have waited near the coffin, searching for some sign or signal, some hint of motion or return. Now that is done with. In an hour, two, he will be placed forever in the vault of the dead. The door will be closed, and it will be finished.

Let the record show that I miss my friend. I loved him, and he is gone. So bright, so agile, so beautiful in his daring... now I am Daedalus, watching my glorious Icarus fall helplessly to the sea. There is no fault to be taken, no one to blame, yet he went forth for me, for our common dream, and died.

It is a bitter thing.

The day has been hushed, overly still. Everyone waits for the evening, for the end. So many of them. Even Cromwell will attend. Even Andrew White, who left his home in Cuba the moment he read my letter, and has only now arrived. A heroic testimonial.

After the service we will come here. I hope it will not be so quiet and sad, then. This could be another Gathering; yet everyone is alone within themselves.

I am ready to move on, though setting aside my mourning will be no small task. A small space of grief inside -- it colours everything in the world.

The cars are here. It is time. I do not think I will write again to-night.

Thursday, 28 February 1929 -- On a Train -

We are off again. The two of us, Tony, Alexandria, and Miss Lamoreaux, who will be leaving us in Paris. The rest of us are off for London.

Miss Carole, it seems, took train with us this morning with the express purpose of speaking to me. She had a great may questions, which I have answered as I could, and a problem or two of her own.

Another receptacle? If true, engendered in Cuba. Ai! What is happening to us? Is there not one of us who is to be left alone, rather than playing pawn to something else? MADDENING! Each of us tainted by the Other - for good or ill - even myself - and to what purpose? Who is human, anymore?

The term 'innocents' takes on a new and ominous meaning ... one that chills me quietly with dread. What will we become, when the smoke clears?

God in Man in God. Avatar as Apotheosis. Ripples. Unity. The 'Fate Factor.' Being as Essence. Perception as Life.

--WHAT?

Muddle, muddle! Taste on the tongue, but it has no FORM! Touch, and touch again, with the Black Man, and Loren, and the Lady - dreams and crystal Vision - the Sign of Despair, the blind glory of Inside Out - but what what WHAT DOES IT SIGNIFY?

Blast. Beat my head on a rocky ground, there is nothing but confusion here! Oh, the taste of it, the Touch; and then it slips between the fingers like water, like weaving sunbeams into lace. A grinding angry frustration grips. What are we for?

Something of ethics and essence, too, I can feel it. If we insist on merely fighting the war, we lose! There is a change that must sweep through us - a thing inside! How to show it? How?

Change. Growth. Desperation. Resolve. Hunted, we are strong. Victorious, we become weak. No? Yes - but incomplete. "The ceremony of innocence is drowned."

Ascetics/discipline/mastery. Puritanism - no - yet there is a strength there. Feel it: the delicate balance, cycle between sloth and starvation - see? Why is it that people who are well on the road to a thing step aside, lose the way, become confused in their plethora? Abundance does not cause sloth or laziness - but see how often they arise in plenty! Not penury, not luxury: Balance. I have been so busy seeking that I have forgot to live. It blinds me.

Oh, the maddening fragments! I want to cry, to throw stones, to pace frantically! The vision returns, I can feel it, it is back - yet it waltzes at the edges of my thoughts, sneakily. Enough.

Later -- Tirade over. I felt a need to race about for a while, so I did. I think Julian is confused by this erratic vehemence; it is compounded of frustration, trepidation about the coming sortie, and a very singular taste of that feeling of something RIGHT impending that I have not felt in any amount for some time. Now I must accept it, let it stew a bit, and in a day or a week perhaps a notion will grow whole.

Miss Carole leaves us in an hour. Paris. A change of trains, then onward. She will return to the House for a bit, to study a few things, then she is bound for New Orleans with a cheque in her pocket, ready to find me a house to build upon. I am eager to see what she will do there; for one of her race the commission I have set will not be simple.

A forge of necessity. Hmm.

Freedom, hah! A new journal; pages stretching endlessly before me; watch me ramble! I am tired; last night went very late.

Discussion. These are not merely ramblings, there is some murky picture behind them, pressing hard to be seen. Unfortunately, I have no clear idea of how to pursue the thing, or of where it leads.

The core of the visible part seems to be the notion that, however necessary (or otherwise) fighting the War may be, that road cannot and will not lead to total victory. Conflict and confrontation may slow them, divert them, buy time for us and the innocent world (though at what cost?) but a chance path to the end of the conflict will come from a different direction entirely. Some sort of inward change, a leap of perspective or faith or discovery that will touch, bind, and unite us in some way I do not yet grasp. I feel echoes of the thing, sometimes; dim whispers of an exalted rightness that urge me toward joyous wonder and leave me shaken when they pass; but not yet any way to give shape to the feeling, or to pass it on to others.

The second part is this concept of BEING. To BE is to do; if I can only find and embody the elusive thing sufficiently within myself, will the others not feel it, see it too? Yet it is not a code of behaviour, this I am sure -- it is something deeper, more intimate and pervasive. To be a teacher, one must merely teach; to be a Teacher, one must inspire.

The third thing is all caught up in the concepts of Fate, or Ripples, or the Hand of God as an active, moving principle. These on the one hand, the Unity and the binding nature of Power on the other. It is all one thing -- two sides of a mirror. The first makes the second necessary; the second makes the first possible. So then, what? Is there a "guiding hand"? I know of one: the Dance. The further one is along one's Path, the less "blind" he becomes -- or is 'blind' the right word? Say rather he knows the right way to move, perhaps without even knowing that he knows. Yet, it seems there is a difference between knowing and the sense of being driven. I do not know; perhaps it is more a case of 'necessary opportunity.' Let this one rest a while.

The fourth. God in Man in God;, and Receptacles. This touches all the other points in one way or another. Given the rest, i.e., the guiding hand, the exaltation of being and so forth, how does one reconcile this with the fact that more and more of us are being tainted by the alien? What Path does one follow, then one is no longer fully human? And IS THIS SIGNIFICANT, this taint, this spread of difference? Is it a good thing or a bad one, regardless of its danger to us? "You will put your worlds before the others" -- what does it mean? What does it portend? Are we in gravest danger? Or unknowingly granted a gift of great price?

Fifth. Magic. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Witches and magicians are assumed evil throughout the classical texts. Why? Often they seem merely proud and self-interested. Waite says it is because a sorcerer places his own interests before God's, and seeks to force his will upon the natural world. Perhaps he is right ... or perhaps that is merely an outgrowth of the common conception of magic as a secret hidden knowledge that makes it seem so. In any event, sorcerers are always pictured as either a) Solitary and selfish, or b) in servile thrall to demons or Satanic forces. The occasional references to "good wizards" would appear to be a modern idea, at least in the West, and the message there is muddled. Hmm.

Priests are a different story, are they not? But there are god priests, and evil priests, and the distinctions blur again. Pierre was a priest; was he a good priest? I like to think so. But what about the Black Man? What about him? "The physical reality of God upon the Earth" -- eesh! Where does priesthood stop and sorcery begin, regardless of good and evil? And what about the others? The Templars, who reportedly worshiped mummified heads? Or the Inquisitors who hunted down and destroyed them with an unbelievably vicious fervor? What about Gootes, whose Daemonolatria describes with perverse avidness each vileness performed by the fiends? Or Spencer and Kramer, whose eagerness to describe the proper ways to torture a witch is nothing less than lustful? Shape of Evil, indeed! The Malleus is nasty! Yet, in their defense, hey were not priests but bounty hunters. It is the men who hired them that I despise.

---

Two classes filled so far. Tony/Alexandria/Lazlo/White is the first, and Alex/Rebecca/Franklin/Dale (hopefully) the second. That is, if he is willing; we have been out of touch for a while, though his reports so far are very interesting. The third class may have to wait until after Gathering if the proper mixture of people is not forthcoming.

Theo will be joining us more fully then. Hmm.
Paris is outside my window.
Awful thought: What if the choice of 'Them or Us' is more real than we have dreamed? What if it must be either their Receptacle or ours on the crossing points, when the gates open and the Time arrives? Brr!