Absence of Light

It is said in the folklore of vampires that they cannot cross running water. Last night I learned, while reading the book Haunted America by James Willis, J.K. Kelley, and Love Belvin, that ghosts are said likewise to be repelled by bodies of water. The authors, though, assured the reader that this is, in fact, not the case. While vampires are said not to be able to cross the running water that must symbolize purity, baptism, and the salvation of the Majestic Christ, ghosts, not manifestly damned in the same way as vampires, are attracted to the currents of water, according to the authors, because the human body, the "mortal coil" they have shuffled off, is made largely of water, the electromagnetic energy conductor that generates the spark by which the discorporate entity can manifest in our world.

Or some such theory.

One of the great, troubling enigmas of my existence is the black phantasm I once referred to as "The Hooded Man," and now refer to as "The Exile." The huge, Reaper-like revenant now only visits me in dreams typically devoid of the same feelings of fear and loathsome spiritual destruction that accompanied this hideous Shadow Person in visions of childhood. This entity, this shadow-man, Devil Man, Boogie Man, is a being that can only be described as "blacker than the black." It seems to be a void of light, of life, a vampire. One fancies it could not cross running water. (The nighttime glimpse of its alien world, seen only in a dream, precipitated its appearance at the last, most horrifying time. The world seemed to be the rocky, barren surface of an alien world. One is reminded of the surface of Mars as depicted in the film Phantasm (1979) after the character of Reggie is saved from falling into the teleportation device and sees, like squat, hooded bugs, the reanimated Jawa-like creatures that are the Hooded One, The Exile, in miniature form. My glimpse of The Exile's domain was just as dream-like, fleeting but to say any more would make this the one of longest digressions in my history as a writer.)

Recently, after dreaming of The Exile's image again, again in dreams devoid of fear, I watched an episode of the Eighties horror anthology Monsters called "Reaper," which was excellent. The episode was centered on a visit by the actual Grim Reaper to a nursing home. The Reaper, in this case, was the nursing home director who could shift forms quite easily between his human form, and his monstrous, grim, Angel of Death form.

If reality is anything, we are reminded, it is a shifting, prismatic dream, largely interpreted by our consciousness, experiencing the "real world" through the lens of our prejudices and whatever 'program" we choose to run. In the modern world, this programming is imposed by politics, propaganda, advertising, societal expectations and "norms"; whatever the currently agreed-upon consensus reality dictates, we will, for the most part, blindly follow, with, as Arthur Desmond put it (writing as "Ragnar Redbeard"), "dog-like submissiveness."

The System updates for the System to program us; in the end, it has no consciousness, but may be described as the "Absence of Light." Does the Dark Force NEED the life force, like ghosts attracted to water or electrical appliances and batteries to "generate" themselves? To establish communication between ourselves and Them? Is it a symbiotic relationship, or a parasitic, vampiric thirst, exemplified by the vampire's fabled need for "living blood," that motivates the engine of Universal Consciousness to manifest, like the character in "Reaper," in the guise of a dark, embodiment of death, the "Absence of Light."

The vampire thirsts for living blood. There have been True Vampires, as author Sondra London observed. Do they work their sadistic mephisto magics to feed from us? Or to understand us? Or, do they see an image of ourselves when they look in the crystalline pool of living tears that have accumulated, drop by miserable drop, at their bony feet?

Questions with no easy answers.

"I used to have a dog, but we don't play anymore."

The Exile

"I wrenched dog backwards and got GOD. Now God barks."

Aleister Crowley.

Somewhere in the night, a lonely howl sounds forth.

Suggested Reading

Willis, James, et al. Haunted America. Publications International, Ltd. 2017

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