Seeing Satan: or, The Second-Hand Mantra, Part 1

I do not believe in God.

I do not believe in Heaven. I do not believe in Hell.

But I do believe spirits walk the Earth. Too many people I know and love and trust have seen them.

And I do believe in Evil.

And he waits...patiently...for me. And for you.

Why do I believe in Evil?

Because I've seen him. With my own eyes.

But, I digress.

Let's go to the beginning of the story.

I was stressed in the mid-80's. I was working a stupid job doing mostly commercials--working with ad agencies and their equally stressed copy-writers and producers. I loved doing production work, but this was doing something I loved at top speed, under a deadline, under the gun, and under the steaming breath of my clients who watched my every move. Long hours in the studio, prep for the next day's work and the mental pressures of doing something you love as well as you can, while simultaneously entertaining your client can lead to missed sleep, skipped meals, and the inevitable ying-yang, pushme-pullyou of both loving and hating your job.

I was stressed and losing sleep. I needed a way to relax. Exercise, I've since learned, works wonders but at the time I'd had a long fruitful life avoiding exercise. I've never experienced a "sports rush" like a lot of friends have, so I've never enjoyed exercise. I don't drink a lot, so heavy binge-drinking's never done much for me. I cannot remember if I was smoking at that time, but even if I wasn't, my wife smoked, our best friends smoked and even my clients smoked in the recording studio. Besides it's a myth that smoking relaxes you--all it does is allow an interruption from the daily grind, bless it's little capillary-constricting heart. I've never smoked dope, and probably never will. Drugs are out for me.

Anyway, I was looking for a way to relieve stress and relax. The wife of a good friend had started taking lessons in Trascendental Meditationtm (TMtm), and the more she told me about it, the more I wanted to try it. Years earlier, I worked with a photographer who told me about self-hypnosis. He'd put himself under for twenty minutes of deep sleep and at a predetermined time, he would completely wake up, fully refreshed. So refreshed, in fact, that he reduced his needed amount of sleep every night to just two hours. The hell with that idea...I like my sleep. But, TM--that seemed a good way to go. Plus, it had the appeal of the exotic--the mysterious, and the spiritual.

My life has been a journey AWAY from religion. I was raised in the Roman Catholic faith--eight years of Catholic Elementary education and then I was released from the nuns and the school uniforms to public schools and its free-form thinking. I'd drifted away from "the church" and then began to actively run away from it. My personal belief (and it's my own--I know it's silly to have to say this, like Monty Python's "Ann Elk," but I'm sure there's some "soul," though I prefer the term "nut-job," who will think that if I express my opinion that I'm advocating everyone should have that opinion, and I am not) that religion started out as a way to explain what could not be explained, to give order to a world seemingly indifferent and chaotic and then became a terrific way for predatory people to "lord" it (quite literally) over less fortunate folk. The revelations of the Church's bureaucratic conspiracy to protect pedophile-priests is the most recent shameful example of this. When asked, I tell people I'm not a "lapsed" Catholic, but a "recovering" Catholic. That usually stops the conversation cold.

So, transcendental meditation was something I wanted to explore. I had nothing to lose. But there needed to be some instruction. One night over dinner our friend, I'll call her "Lisa," sat me down to give me the rudimentary points about TM. "Lisa" told me that I needed to sit in a chair and get comfortable. She told me to completely relax--this was something that was particularly tough for me to do, especially at this time in my life. To relax, I had to start with my head and focus on every part of my body, relaxing it one segment at a time, all the way down until I reached my feet. Concentrate. Focus. Relax. Move on.

To aid in the relaxation I needed something to distract my racing thoughts from the day-to-day stresses that pre-occupied it, like counting sheep to fall asleep (is this a theme starting here?). I needed a mantra: a simple combination of nonsense syllables that I would repeat, and by focussing my mind on those meaningless phrases, I would be prevented from letting my concerns creep in and ruin my concentration. "Lisa" was generous enough to let me use the one her instructor gave her. Here it is:

Har-ring

Am I giving away a secret? Maybe...but I doubt it. I look at those syllables as nonsense words--they have no power inherent in them. The power rests in the repeating and the rhythm of the chanting--the focussing of the mind. It could be "Jar-Jar," "Don Juan," or "Ming Tea" for all that.
Har-ring. I had to use those syllables. They were given to "Lisa" by her instructor to use, and now she was letting me use them as well. They were hand-me-down syllables. A second-hand mantra. "Lisa" worried that by giving me her mantra, she might be doing something wrong...invoking some wrath of some such. Maybe it would weaken the word--like how handing the power of "Shazam!" to another would weaken the power of Captain Marvel. But she was going to supervise this first attempt at TM, so if something went wrong she could make an attempt to intervene. In that unlikely event, she warned me that I shouldn't panic and yank myself out of my meditative state--that would give me a blinding headache. Best to "cowboy" it out and slowly bring myself out of it, slowly, at a measured pace.

"Lisa" told me to close my eyes and begin to relax. When my whole body felt heavy and relaxed, I started to repeat those syllables in my head--over and over and they began to coalesce into and out of rhythm. I let go of any residual tautness or tension in my body. I breathed slowly...regularly...and slowly, my body began to relax further...and as it did, my shoulders sagged--my arms became limp and dead-weights. My body became slack and heavy. My breathing slowed. "Har-ring" began to echo in my head...

Like a drumbeat

Like a chant

Like my heart-beat.

I felt totally and completely relaxed.

And, then....

I dropped.

Part 2 tomorrow.