Observations placeholder

Dr Paul Brunton

A Search in Secret Egypt

I know only that as I "tuned-in" by a method of interiorized attention which I had learnt long before this second visit to Egypt, I became aware that hostile forces had invaded the chamber. There was something abroad which I sensed as evil, dangerous. A nameless dread flickered into my heart and returned again and again soon after it was driven away. I still following my method of intense, single-pointed, inward-turned concentration, feeling followed its usual trend and changed into vision.

Shadows began to flit to and fro in the shadowless room; gradually these took more definite shape, and malevolent countenances appeared suddenly quite close to my own face. Sinister images rose plainly before my mind's eye. Then a dark apparition advanced, looked at me with fixed sinister regard and raised its hands in a gesture of menace, as though seeking to inspire me with awe.

Age-old spirits seemed to have crept out of the neighbouring necropolis, a necropolis so old that mummies had crumbled away inside their stone sarcophagi; the shades that clung to them made their unwelcome ascent to the place of my vigil. All the legends of evil ghosts who haunt the areas around the Pyramids, came back to memory with the same unpleasant detail with which they had been related by Arabs in the village not far off. When I had told a young Arab friend there of my intention to spend a night in the old building, he had tried to dissuade me.

"Every inch of ground is haunted," had been his warning. "There is an army of ghosts and genii in that territory."

And now I could see that his warning was not a vain one. Spectral figures had begun to creep into and around the dark room wherein I sat, and the undefinable feeling of uneasiness which earlier had seized me was now receiving fit and full justification. Somewhere in the centre of that still thing which was my body, I knew that my heart beat like a hammer under the strain of it all.

The dread of the supernatural, which lurks at the bottom of every human heart, touched me again. Fear, dread, horror persistently presented their evil visages to me in turn. Involuntarily my hands clenched themselves as tightly as a vice. But I was determined to go on, and although these phantom forms that moved across the room began by stirring in me a sense of alarm, they ended by provoking me to summon whatever reserves of courage and combativeness I could muster.

My eyes were closed and yet these grey, gliding, vaporous forms obtruded themselves across my vision. And always there came with them an implacable hostility, an ugly determination to deter me from my purpose. A circle of antagonistic beings surrounded me. It would have been easy to end it all by switching on the light or by leaping up and dashing out of the chamber and running back a few hundred feet to the locked grille-entrance, where the armed guard would have provided gregarious comfort. It was an ordeal which imposed a subtle form of torture that harried the soul and left the body untouched. Yet something inside me intimated just as implacably that I must see this thing through.

At last the climax came. Monstrous elemental creations, evil horrors of the underworld, forms of grotesque, insane, uncouth and fiendish aspect gathered around me and afflicted me with unimaginable repulsion. In a few minutes I lived through something which will leave a remembered record behind for all time. That incredible scene remains vividly photographed upon my memory. Never again would I repeat such an experiment; never again would I take up a nocturnal abode within the Great Pyramid.

The end came with startling suddenness. The malevolent ghostly invaders disappeared into the obscurity whence they had emerged, into the shadowy realms of the departed, taking with them their trail of noxious horrors. My half-shattered nerves experienced overwhelming relief such as a soldier feels when a fierce bombardment ends abruptly.

I do not know how long a period elapsed before I became conscious of a new presence in the chamber, of someone friendly and benevolent who stood at the entrance and looked down upon me with kindly eyes. With his arrival the atmosphere changed completely - and changed for the better. Something clear and sane had come with him. A new element began to play upon my overwrought sensitive being, soothing and calming it. He approached my stony- seat, and I saw that he was followed by another figure. Both halted at my side and regarded me with grave looks, pregnant with prophetic meaning. I felt that some momentous hour of my life was at hand.

In my vision the apparition of these two beings presented an unforgetable picture. Their white robes, their sandalled feet, their wise aspect, their tall figures-all these return at once to the mind's eye. Withal they wore the unmistakable regalia of their office, High Priests of an ancient Egyptian cult. There was light a-glimmer all around them, which in a most uncanny manner lit up the part of the room. Indeed, they looked more than men, bearing the bright mien of demi-gods; for their faces were set in unique cloistral calm.

They stood motionless as statues, regarding me, their hands crossed upon their breasts, remaining absolutely silent. Was I functioning in some fourth dimension, aware and awake in some far-off epoch of the past? Had my sense of time regressed to the early days of Egypt? No; that could not be, for I perceived quickly that these two could see me and even now were about to address me. Their tall figures bent forward; the lips of one spirit seemed to move, his face close to mine, his eyes flashing spiritual fire, and his voice sounding in my ear. "Why dost thou come to this place, seeking-to evoke the secret powers? Are not mortal ways enough for thee?" he asked.

I did not hear these words with any physical ear; certainly no sound-vibration disturbed the silence of the chamber. Yet I seemed to hear them much in the manner in which a deaf man, using an electric earphone, might hear the words sounding against his artificial ear-drum; but with this difference-that they were heard on the inside of the drum. Really, the voice which came to me might be termed a mental voice, because it was surely heard within my head, but that might give the wrong impression that it was a mere thought. Nothing could be farther from the truth. It was a voice.

And I answered: "They are not."

And he said:

"The stir of many crowds in the cities comforts the trembling heart of man. Go back, mingle with thy fellows, and thou wilt soon forget the light fancy that brings thee here."

But I answered again: "No, that cannot be."

Still he strove once more.

"The way of Dream will draw thee far from the fold of reason. Some have gone upon it - and come back mad. Turn now, whilst there is yet time, and follow the Path appointed for mortal feet."

But I shook my head and muttered: "I must follow this way. There is none other for me now."

Then the priestly figure stepped forward closer and bent down again to where I sat.

"I saw his aged face outlined by the surrounding darkness. He whispered against my ear:

"He who gains touch with us loses kin with the world. Art thou able to walk alone?"

I replied: "I do not know."

Out of the darkness came his last words:

"So be it. Thou hast chosen. Abide by thy choice for there is now no recall. Farewell," and he was gone.

I was left alone with the other spirit, who so far had only played the part of a silent witness.