Dare The Devil

Chapter 9 - Confirmation

“And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.”

---The New Testament, Second Corinthians 11:14

Being the scientist I was, and engaged as I was in full-time drug research, the first thing I needed to do was repeat the experiment, as any capable scientist would.  The next night, same street, same pot, same pipe, same light….and nothing.  No vision, no Voice, no Power, nothing.  I played many records and they were only music.  Even stoned, there was no 3-D matrix of pulsating shapes.  And no songs talked to me.  The Voice was simply not there.  Even listening to the same album as the previous night, where I had been told so clearly that everything was being orchestrated by The Power from beyond, nothing.  Sure, I was stoned, but I had been stoned before.

So what of the experience?  It seemed to boil down to 3 distinct possibilities.  First, that it was just “a thing.”  Call it an alignment of the planets or whatever.  Hey, stuff happens, and maybe mine was just one such occurrence.  The next possibility was that I had conjured the entire thing myself.  The Voice and Power were real only to the extent that they were me talking to myself.  And the third possibility, then, was that The Voice and Power were, indeed, real, agents outside myself, and Peter had something to do with it.

Proof?  As in definable, reliable, repeatable proof?  None was available.  Not that I could tell.  If it was just a “thing”, then I knew with certainty that I had never experienced any “thing” like it.  And certainly couldn’t reproduce it now, no matter how desperately I suckled that marijuana pipe, like an infant hopeful and desperate for life-sustaining nourishment.  And if it was some kind of psychic break within myself, then it seemed most unlikely that I, myself, could even detect that from within myself.

And then there was the whole non-drug “thing.”  Debbie arranging me to meet Peter and him befriending me for no apparent reason and Debbie telling me I would do what I was told even though I still had no idea what that meant and all of Peters talk about being the warlock and all that.  And I was so attracted to the power, the mystery, the “specialness” of it all.  Within the pathetic mythology of Sam’s little brain I had always felt different, wanted to be different, Mommy had told me I was different, and this certainly was different.  Maybe I wanted it to be real.  Maybe that’s what made it real.  There was no way to know for sure.

The only thing I know for certain is that in less than a year I would know absolutely it was real, and beg, plead, and cry for it not to be.  “Please, Dear God!  No!  NO!! NO!!!”

But I would have to wait for hell to come calling.  Even to this day I wish I would have stopped it, assuming I even could have stopped it.  Not for my sake, for indeed I deserved all I got and much more.  But she, my dearest, my sweetheart, my first and only true love, never did anything to merit such terror, except to love me….

--\--

For the here and now there was my Senior year of high school starting, and the challenging schedule of racquetball, typing, drama and music appreciation. 

Yes, I needed to show up, attendance being just about the only thing California’s public school system could actually offer me.  And I had plenty of units and the four classes were just enough and a more motivated student would have opted for early college or something but I was having too much fun, and with no form of support group (family or otherwise) to push or inspire me, it was all too easy to follow the path most traveled, the way of least resistance.  Racquetball, typing, drama and music appreciation.  Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  I had Tuesdays and Thursdays off. 

Tough, I know, but with the great strength of moral character I was developing through devoted application of liberal amounts of Bible Study and drugs, I was able to handle it.

The whole Christian-Dope-Smoker thing had been a bit of a challenge, I’ll admit.  Calvary Chapel and Campus Crusade for Christ made it quite clear, or tried to, that Christians should not smoke weed.  Their argument, however, like so much of their Theology and world view, was quite weak, only able to point to a very few Biblical ideas (like not getting drunk with wine (which I wasn’t) and keeping the temple of the body pure) to help support their position.  Rationalizing these away was no challenge at all for me, and besides, those prohibitions were only for normal people, and I was getting the idea here that maybe I was right and Mommy was right and maybe just maybe Sam wasn’t normal.  I had no idea what that meant, since in October 1975 when Peter and I reunited I hadn’t realized that I was really the Chosen One, The Antichrist Himself, called and ordained by God Almighty to Destroy the World, all in the Name of Love and Peace.  That would be later.

--\--

When Peter called my house that late October I nearly dropped the phone.  “Peter!  Where the hell are you?!?  I’ve tried to reach you so many times.  What’s going on?”

“Look, I’m in town visiting my Mom, only for tonight.  I thought we might get together.”  Absolutely!  I would have to rush through my homework (grin), but I was sure I could manage it.

He showed up about a hour later.  We did the usual chit-chat, school, music, all that meaningless emptiness that constitutes mortal life.  But quickly we found ourselves in his car, driving, smoking, talking about things that really mattered, like The Voice and The Power and witches and warlocks and me and exactly what happened that night.

Of  course, in true occult fashion, Peter would not answer one single question directly.  It was much more important to him to know what I thought about the Night of The Voice than to give me any clarification.  I poured-out my heart, letting him know exactly everything I had felt and experienced.  “What was it?”  No answer.  He was almost mean, somewhat like he was playing a cat and mouse game.  He had the upper hand, he was unquestionably the dominant one here, and he relished the role.

“What do you think it was?” he wanted to know.  I said I wasn’t sure, but that it undeniably seemed real.  The important thing, what Peter (I guessed) was looking for, was an indication that I wanted more.  I gave it to him, willingly.

“Can you do it again?”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Very much.  I mean, whatever you want.”

“When the time comes, you will do as you’re told.”  Again, that cryptic mantra, first from Debbie, now from Peter.

“Sure.  Like what?”  I mean, being a warlock was one thing, but he didn’t, like, want me to like, uh, do anything to him, like any homo stuff?

“No, of course not, don’t be stupid.”  He smacked me on the head.

“You mean like a favor?”  the same thing I asked Debbie.

“You will know when the time comes” was all he’d say.

We were already high, having lit up nearly as soon as we got in his car.  And yes, we used my stash, and in the name of scientific exploration I made sure it was impossible for him to put anything into the pipe, and besides we had been driving for half an hour, and there was no Voice, no Power, and yeah, I was a bit stoned but still that’s all.

Until Peter started talking to me.  Weird stuff.  Something about watching the road, and do you ever notice how it, oh, I don’t know, it was all getting fuzzy, and the weird, light-headed feeling was returning, and I noticed we were parked in front of my parents’ house, and I heard him say, quite distinctly, yes I definitely heard him say, “My best performance ever.”  I got out of the car, not knowing I would never see Peter again.

And as I again walked to the fluorescent light I could hear The Voice again, I could see it in the light (whatever that means, but that’s what it was).  The 2 months that had passed between the first meeting and now did not exist.  The only realities were the light, the Voice, the Power, and me.  Space and time did not exist.

The Voice was preparing to talk to me again.  I could feel it, like the power of a hundred-foot wave roaring onto the ocean shore.  But I so much wanted to get into my room and lay down instead of standing out here on the street staring up at the light, yes, there was at least that much of my conscious brain still working, so without thinking and really not having any idea what I was saying or what was really going on or anything, and I could feel the tunnel-vision and the out-of-body sensations gathering steam very, very quickly, I thought, “No, please, not yet.”

The Voice was not pleased.  “No?  NO?!? WHAT DID YOU SAY?!?!?” it screamed.  And instead of dancing in an ocean containing trillions of photons, each with individual names, intoxicating me with visions of transcendence, I started to shake.  Not just a little shiver, I mean a full-cavity, every-muscle-in-my-body trembling like it’s 100 degrees below zero and I’m making my last stand for life itself.  I clutched my sides.  “Sorry.  SORRY!”

“Sorry?  Sorry?!?  Do you have any idea what is going on here?  Never, EVER TALK THAT WAY TO ME EVER AGAIN IF YOU WANT TO LIVE!!!!!!!”  I fell to my knees, not exactly voluntarily, but most entities care not how you assume the position, only that you do.  And I threw-up into the grass, somehow making a mental note that I’d best come out here tomorrow (if there was going to be a tomorrow) and try to wash it away.

I don’t know how long I was there, or how I eventually stood, or made it inside to bed, but I do know those things happened.  I also know that there were no visions that night, no talking records and no further Voices.  I lay in bed with the covers over my head, convulsing and shivering for at least an hour before sleep mercifully let me pass out.

--\--

“I’m sorry, Peter returned to school early this morning” was all his Mom could tell me when I called her the next day.  And no, she could not give me a number to reach him at.  Yes, she knew it was very important, but that’s just the way it was.  Peter gave strict orders not to give his number to any of the old high school group.

Answers would not be coming from there.  I knew it before I called, but had to complete the exercise, just for the record.

When I saw Debbie in the library again I recounted the entire story to her.  I got no reaction.  No, “Oh, wow!”  or, “How weird.” 

All she said was, “You had to be shown who’s in charge.”  She was so matter-of-fact that I nearly started shaking again.  How could this cute girl be so unimpressed with my story?  How could she be so casual about The Voice?  What was going on here?!?  I mean, I didn’t even know what this Voice was, let alone who it was, and I certainly had no idea what it wanted.  But it definitely had something to do with Peter and Debbie and doing what I was told.

My mind was made up.  Even if this was somehow a psychotic break within myself, it was from a part of me so very foreign that, for all intents and purposes, it was an outside agent.  But pressed to it I really didn’t give the psychosis theory any weight.  I mean, I was the smartest kid in University High School; I used to beat kids playing chess blindfolded.  I knew who and what I was, where I was, all that.  I did independent study calculus in my Junior year!  How could I be crazy?  I had had exactly 2 “episodes”, and both were in the presence of a guy who claimed to be a warlock and in a coven with a girl named Debbie, and both said I would do what I was told.

Part of me started to feel like I had taken money from the mob.  The rational side of me knew that, when they wanted their cash back, the “vig” would not be easy.  But that was for later.  The prevailing, non-rational side of me had enough “evidence” to conclude I was really onto something here, and I’d be damned if I’d let that opportunity go by.

[Home] [Colorful Introduction]  [God's Name] [The Revealing Science of God] [Jesus Died for You] [Contact] [Support] 

 (c) 1996-2008 The Church of Yahweh. All rights reserved. May be freely distributed, but never sold. 
If you are going to use this material in your web page or ministry, wonderful. But please have the honor to attribute where you got it from. Thank you.