September 11, 2021
After comparing our experiences, she named something that I found helpful: Underworld, middle world and overworld. Her experiences tend to take place in the middle and overworlds whereas mine usually take place in the underworld. The lost soul, journeys through the Bardo, meetings with ‘dark angels’ like Lucifer - all underworld stuff. Or, if you like, stuff on the ‘dark side’ rather than the light. Although I have to clarify that by dark, I don’t mean evil or sinister.
I have written about how I have an affinity for darkness over light which is why I resonate with the Absolute. My experiences don’t deny or reject Light - indeed, the Light of the Divine is a constant even when delving into the darkest recesses of the underworld. Black and light are the same thing when you view them together, you can’t call them opposites. Also, I don’t like to think in terms of good and evil. Moralistic or superego-based views are anathema.
I’ve spent the last two weeks or so in what I call Imaginal preschool. It’s when I get sent back to meditation 101 classes with a spirit minder to keep me from getting distracted. Usually, it’s because I need to develop my resoluteness/steadfastness in order to stabilize in the Imaginal and not get carried away or deceived. (I hope you realize that I don’t take any experience in the Imaginal as the god-honest truth. I sit with the experiences and let them flow through me, seeing what they bring forward. It’s an act of contemplation.)
At first, the entity that has been sitting with me took the form of a gay porn star I had just looked at on Twiter. The next day he took the form of an anime character. The message was clear: Don’t take the outward form too seriously and stay with the depth. Subsequently, ‘he’ - if he has a gender at all - has appeared as a black silhouette and then a shadow and finally nothing at all. The commonality is that I always feel his ‘hand’ on my left hand while I’m meditating. It’s a gentle reminder to stay focused on the meditation. It’s also a demonstration of platonic love - I can tell this entity loves me, albeit not necessarily in a personal way and certainly not in a sexual way. He feels more like a longtime friend, someone I’ve known for a very long time.
Today on the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, I found myself thinking about the terrorists and wondering who is remembering them. Further, I found myself wondering about their redemption. What happened to them? If my previous experience in the underworld with the angel I call Lucifer is a guide, I knew they were probably in ‘hell’ - although hell, as I’ve written about before, isn’t a place where torture and damnation are inflicted upon the ‘evil’ doers. It’s more like a ‘place’ where they are trapped in the tortuous maze of their cement-like psyches. They are so stuck and so lost and so far gone that only by the very loving and dedicated ministrations of Lucifer and his allies can they ever hope to be freed from the prisons of their minds/psyches.
I don’t know why I’m the way I am. I don’t know why I am drawn to the darkness but I feel compelled to explore the taboo places, the places we’re not supposed to be curious about. I care about those who have done evil and want to see them redeemed, even though I know that I’m naive if I believe that I can help them. Still, I felt compelled to try.
I sat and meditated, contemplating the fate of the terrorists. It wasn’t long before I found myself in the underworld of hell, the domain of Lucifer. He was there, of course; he always is. Such a beautiful and dedicated angel of a being! I can’t help but shake my head at how wrong we have been about him. His name should have been the clue to his true identity all along: Light-Bringer. That’s exactly what he does, wielding his sword of truth and bringing the shining light of the divine to the worst sinners. How could you not be moved by this?
If any of my impressions are to be believed, I got the sense that the 9/11 terrorists were still mostly ‘stuck’ in the hell of their own devising. These are hardened men and their souls are impenetrable for the most part. Still, I got the sense they were aware of me on some level. It was like being in a pitch black room and standing amongst a bunch of tormented, black beings in chains. They were frozen in their torment; hell is a chilly place. Although it’s hard to know what their inner experience is. It’s possible that inside their self-inflicted prisons, the hot flames of hell are forever burning their hearts.
Curdled hatred was the most obvious emotion. Hatred is black and cold and acidic but it is also a distortion of the Absolute. Viewed another way, it is the soothing oblivion, the peacefulness of nothingness, the very light of nonbeing itself. It is beautiful and weightless and pregnant with the possibility of all creation. Hatred alchemically transforms. All negative emotions do. In fact, everything transforms alchemically when held with the equanimity of being/non-being.
Again, I don’t want to read too much into this experience. It could be complete fabrication and fantasy. Certainly, I don’t see myself as a savior. I’m not even really a catalyst because a catalyst is not transformed during the chemical reaction it amplifies - I am deeply affected by these experiences and am changed as a result.
After sitting amongst these tortured souls, the self-imprisoned terrorists, I felt one open to me. I don’t know who he is; I don’t even know if he was one of the 9/11 terrorists. He could have been another person who perpetrated a fatal act of terrorism and was himself killed in the subsequent carnage. Perhaps he was a suicide bomber? Maybe he was killed by the police or soldiers or mob that responded to the attack? In any case, all I know is that he was young, perhaps 19 years old and, while he believed passionately in the cause, he was also youthfully naive. Maybe it’s because of his youthfulness that I was able to reach him?
At first, I was outside of his experience - the black, dankness in the ‘room’ filled with the damned locked in their bleak prisons. Then there was red. Blood red. His experience was awash in blood. It was unsettling but, like I said above, everything can be alchemically transformed; it’s just a matter of seeing with the eyes of the Divine. The most heinous, hideous things become beautiful, pure, radiant with the light of Being.
And so it was with the blood. Everything was awash in red and then it became alive with red, vibrant with red, pulsing with vitality and life. And then I felt him coming alive. It was a beautiful thing to behold and happened much faster than I expected. Soon, he was bursting with yellow joy, boundless optimism, the renewal of hope for things to become better. I got a good sense of him, who he was, who he was becoming. There was so much excitement! And there was freedom - he felt free for the first time in many years (who knows how time passes in that place? A month here in the ‘real world’ could feel like an eternity) and was ready to embrace this newfound release. There was merging as well, my experience with his. I could feel him within me and invited him to stay as long as he wished. (You’ll recall that I’ve done this with other souls I’ve encountered as well.)
And that’s where we left it. He had found his way to freedom and taken the first steps toward redemption.
Or is this all just a grandiose fantasy? Or somewhere in between?
Like I said, I don’t feel like a savior but I’m also not just a catalyst. I didn’t do anything besides follow my curiosity and inquire into the nature of his experience. I guess that bias I have is toward redemption - I feel like no one is beyond redemption and everyone should be given as many chances as they need to find their way back to the light of Being.
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