Olivia Robertson - The Call of Isis Eighteen

The Call of Isis

by

Olivia Robertson

18. Coming Down to Earth.

I had a friend who thought he was God. He came to this conclusion during a mystical revelation. However, what made him particularly irritating to his friends was that he was not only God, but the only God.

To effect a cure, his long-suffering friends got hold of a witch who had had a similar mystical opening. Left alone with our friend, she managed to convince him that she too was God.

But this spoilt it for him. To share his Godhead with a witch - and a female at that! Speedily he came down to earth.

It is the return journey from mystical awakening and religious revelation that brings about the greatest dangers. There is the risk of misinterpretation, hence fanaticism, on the part of the Prophet and Visionary; a separation from the rest of humanity through spiritual isolation. And, most upsetting from a planetary point of view, possible mental and emotional unbalance affecting both spiritual leader and his followers.

It appears to me that myths of the past may really present present-day actuality. Are we Atlanteans, about to lose ourselves in a deluge of our own creation? Are we the legendary planet 'Maldek' destroyed by misused power? We foolish humans steal the forbidden apples of Eden and, through our scientific technology, hope to be as gods, when we lack the ethical qualifications for godhead! And as a consequence, we are poisoning a third of the seas, a third of the vegetation, a third part of the air, as prophesied in the Book of Revelations.

Once a story came to me on this subject. I told it in the Temple of Isis, and three musicians accompanied my narration with flute, mandolin and organ. Rosalind took the part of the little girl: Helena of the Devi.

'Once upon a time,' I said, 'there was a strange little planet that had a roof around it, like a large plastic umbrella. For the people them did not care for weather changes, and preferred to live with regulated illumination and heating. They preferred artificial flowers and plants: and instead of real live animals, they liked 'CosiPets', artificially made animals and birds that were both hygenic and non-reproductive. Foodstuffs and plants came likewise from computerised factories.

However, there was one odd small girl who lived in a weird island to the West of this planet. She was so peculiar that when she was alone she took off her pretty face-mask and her all-over tights: and she would dance all on her own with a naked face and body, on a neglected piece of waste pavement.

You may ask why was anything waste on this efficient planet? But the inhabitants of the Western island were negligent and they had neglected to keep their bit of the sky-umbrella mended! So it leaked. Naturally people avoided the leak. So that bit of pavement became neglected.

But the little girl enjoyed playing with the leak, and liked its cold splashiness more than her hot sanitary cosi-bath provided by the Municipality.

Now in the place of the leak, owing to the continual dripping, came about a crack on the pastel plasti-floor that covered the whole planetary surface. And in this crack exuded a dreadful stuff called 'earth'. It became still more shocking when it got wet through the leak, for then it became 'mud'. Of course the authorities would have made the Sani-squad clean up this at once. However, up to now the leak had not been reported to the Municipality. As for the little girl, she liked mud! She made pies with it.

Then the most extraordinary thing began to happen. The only living plant on the planet began to show its green head. Up and up it grew, and the little girl loved it. It was her only friend and she used to converse with it.

However, a crisis came in her short life. Her peculiarity had not gone unnoticed by the local Sub-teenage Psychiatrist. Her habit of not wearing her pretty face-mask, secretly removing her all-over tights, and above all, an atavistic tendency to sing and dance, plainly indicated that she was retarded. Her foster-mother in her commune was told that the child would have to go into an Institution for the socially maladjusted.

However, the little girl was so socially maladjusted that she did not want to co-operate with her psychiatrist. She determined to escape. So she marched off to her plant - which was a bean-stalk - and had by now grown right through the planetary roof. And she asked the plant to help her.

This was Helena's cue to appear with appropriate music. She appeared as the Beanstalk Devi, and offered to take the girl up the plant into the air above.

At this point I used to vary the ending. There was our natural desire to bring the plasti-dome down onto the unattractive inhabitants of this planet, along with their tinted facemasks, their cuddly cosipets, and plastic plants! The more humane ending was to transport the girl to a better place, from whence she could return when grownup and, with new friends from the sky, help to release the pallid wretches in their self-created prison.

These stories are best left open, because the imagination can truly create when left its own freedom. As we dream today, we live tomorrow.

Yes, but can the little girl really return from another sphere and bring back her experience of a better life? Such a girl in the past might have been incarcerated in convent, prison or madhouse. Anyway, she would have been socially unacceptable. No race likes its successors.

At present, for the first time for many hundreds of years, a new race of mystics may reveal themselves without persecution. It is as if human mutation is at last taken place. Those who take drugs only provide cover for true visionaries: those who are born with faculties that need no drugs for their manifestation.

What happens now? We have a bizarre situation, in which one lot of people, the majority of the race, 'Homo Sapien', still ruling the planet, are puzzled by a new race of weird creatures appearing among them; their own children, but with a different appearance, language and habits! And these oddities claim to be creating an alternative society: a society they believe will supersede the old establishment. And these gentle people with long hair, soft voices and strange beliefs, are manifesting in all countries, making old-fashioned creeds, whether religious or Marxist, seem irrelevant.

It is easy to sympathise with ordinary men and women faced with weird progeny. But what of the point of view of the 'mutants'?

To take an example. A young man has had a mystical opening, which he calls 'being blissed out of his head.' How does he relate to others who have not had a similar experience? He may suffer acutely from the psychological clash.

I once experienced just such an agonizing clash when I was in a heightened state of consciousness, with others who were not. They happened to be talking about fishing! I felt tortured psychically. This state lasted for about three minutes. I do not think I could have endured it any longer.

These experiences are not always horrific in relation to daily physical life. Once I was able to see the divine correspondence in all about me. I knew the spiritual significance of hedges, of grass, of the points of the compass. I was able to see a shining good in people and animals, masked by outer personality. It was outer personality that gave the impression that all about me were in a sleep,

One realizes the relativity of this, because as I descended from the ecstatic state, everyone else became 'awake' again.

It was only years later that I met others who had had similar experiences. Natasha said that in this state of greater consciousness, all the world shone with glory - and even the cat smiled at her! Another man - a scientist - said that as he was walking along Lincoln's Inn fields, he attained this cosmic consciousness. It was cosmic, because he was one with all that was. He said he met a Down-and-Out, and he knew that he had only to say one word to this tramp, and so great was his power that he could have transformed the whole of the man's life. But, over-awed by this tremendous force working through him, my friend prayed that he might return to his usual diminished state of selfishness: at this, the power left him.

It was only at the end of the sixties that I realized that these spontaneous mystical experiences were becoming widespread. They seem to be 'catching'. If you are in a room with a person in this state of euphoria you can, through the telepathic network, pick up the condition.

Now one can see the problem for those who not only have had one or two mystical experiences, but, as the young graphically put it, are usually 'high', having had their 'minds blown'. Imagine a London street, in which men and women rush to and fro in what we call a normal state of consciousness. And among these ordinary citizens some weird creatures saunter, 'turned on'. Add to these pleasant dreamers others with criminal tendencies, opened up dangerously through drugs, and you have the present day scene.

The best thing to do is to give advice to those who find themselves unexpectedly opened up psychically, owing possibly to a vegetarian diet, the practice of meditation, and the reading of occult books.

Learning to discriminate between the various spheres is the most important safeguard. For instance, a girl leaves her group meditation session, and at first is happy as she sails down the local high-street, her mind over-flowing with universal love and goodwill. Suddenly, frighteningly, she is assailed by all the worries, the miseries and frustration of those in the high-street: also she feels the suffering of animals, as she passes a butcher's shop. For in this state she does not see a piece of dead meat, but the whole animal that once grazed in green pastures. She must learn to keep her revulsion to herself. Already a policeman is eyeing her suspiciously.

Then she sees an encouraging notice high up on a wall: 'Take Courage'. She feels joyful. Angels have put it there in lights ... She fails to notice that she is looking at an advertisement for ale!

Then she is afraid. Glaring at her on the back of a red bus she is assailed by the menacing words: 'Watch your Step!' She takes this to be a threat from Dark Forces, and does not realize that she is reading a warning to jay-walkers from London Transport ... In fact she acts so strangely that she may eventually end up in a mental hospital.

The psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia is only too accurate: she had been experiencing two levels of consciousness in the wrong place, at the wrong time: hence deriving no benefit from either.

It would seem then that psychics would do well to treat themselves with the same care they pay to a television set, and make sure what channel they are on! If any. And this requires not only well balanced emotion, but a state of mental development brought about by natural brain capacity and a good education. Occult knowledge could not have been given in the Middle Ages to the mass of people, because they were intellectually under-developed.

Only now, with general education, is there the possibility of a big step forward by humanity into greater spiritual consciousness.

When one surveys the condition of the earth, threatened by global war, planetary pollution, the possibility of a beautiful change dawning on earth seems remote! But the physical world is created through the action of mind; and the mind is capable of fantastic change when its environment is threatened.

I myself find it heartening to reflect that the vision of the two Initiations, of Water and of Fire, have already been given to us at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. When a Mystery is performed on the earth before an earthly audience, a new age is upon us. Studying the Eleusinian mysteries of Demeter and Persephone, to me the visions of Lourdes and Fatima are a portrayal of these dramas in actual human history.

The Lesser Mystery was shown at Lourdes in the form of a vision of a beautiful maiden appearing in a grotto. The young girl who witnessed the visions drew forth a stream of healing water from the mud.

The Greater Eleusinian mystery was, I believe, manifested at Fatima. Here we have people seeing a Golden Disc bringing from the sky the apparition of a woman robed in white. The visions were shown to three children, and occurred on each thirteenth of the month, from May to October; so including the ancient dates of the Mysteries of the Goddesses. At the culmination in October, seventy thousand onlookers saw a sun disc revolve, and show spectroscopic change: they called it 'the dancing sun'.

The Lesser Mystery of Lourdes therefore, portrayed Persephone, Queen of Day and Night, the perfect embodiment of a Divine Idea, in control of the elements of Earth and Water. The Greater Mystery of Fatima illustrated power over the elements of Air and Fire. So unseen Teachers demonstrate in visionary drama the symbols of positive and negative forces. Water and Fire unite: Sun and Moon are one. In other parts of the world, through various religions, the same message is being given to us. There is need of harmony between East and West: Mind and Heart. From the uniting of opposites comes creativity.

How can we as individuals co-operate with this great work? It is best, I feel, for like-minded people to combine into meditation circles. No special temple is needed: any room may be used in a friend's house. And for private daily meditation, one can set aside even a comer of a room for one's spiritual attunement with Divinity.

And through this habitual focussing of awareness, inspiration will come. Of course inspiration varies with each one of us: one may surprise oneself by developing an unexpected talent. Instead of specializing in one particular form of work or gift, one may discover pleasure in painting, writing, singing, dancing and modelling clay: and one need not mind about a lack of proficiency!

To evolve spiritually, it is essential to extend one's field of awareness. Once inhibiting self-consciousness is cast aside, latent talents may flower gloriously.

As a growth of consciousness takes place, small groups join larger ones, who tend to seek a beautiful area in which to live together. In such centres humans live in harmony with animals, birds, trees and plants, with the spirit of Nature Herself. A network of such centres may bring about a wonderful transformation of our earth. For in the depth of each one of us is a longing to live happily with all that springs from the source of Divine Life.

Life does not limit itself to form or time or space. It is eternal, ever-conscious, all-pervading. In unity with this, we realize the joy of immortality, and are in harmony with all that is.

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Text presented on this site as it appears in the 1975 edition.