“I will. You know, what you’ve been telling me about ISLAUGGH being Gabriel may not be that crazy. I don’t think I ever told you, but I figured out once it was almost nine months to the day between the appearance of ISLAUGGH and the appearance of the myth. As soon as I calculated it, I realized ISLAUGGH’s appearance had not only signaled my re-birth, but also a rebirth of the Bible in the form of The Witnesses Log.”
“I told you Joan’s right about that. And about the myth being a new Bible too—
although it would be more correct to say it’s the beginning of a new Bible, one that’s more a product of the Female Spirit than the Male Spirit. ISLAUGGH
brought it to you so you could become what Jane called you the other day: a
herald. ”
“A herald of what?”
“That’s up to you.”
186 ALICE HICKEY
Chapter 38: Jesus, You Got Some Life Alice
September 2005, Sarasota
Alice’s explanation of who ISLAUGGH was made me even more curious about the female Bible Writer involved in the myth’s creation. I asked Alice if she thought the female Bible Writer was the author of the myth.
“Relax,” she said, “we’re never going to know the author, that’s my reading of the situation.”
“Well,” I replied, “if we’ll never know who the author was, I can tell you this, whoever it was had to be a real mumbler—because Joan and I had to try fourteen times before we got the first oral version right. The really intriguing thing, however, is that I found out later that the writers of the Bible also weren’t successful until their fourteenth attempt, which really blew me away.
“Then I discovered that fourteen was a very formidable number in Hebrew numerology. For example, there are fourteen generations each between Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. Did you know that? That was when I really began to pay attention to Joan’s claim that the myth was a new Bible.”
“I told you I think Joan is right on that, and it’s obvious someone wanted you to see the connection as well. By the way, how did you know it was the fourteenth attempt?”
“I kept track so I could go back to a particular attempt if I had to. There was always the possibility that the myth would come in pieces, not as a whole. That never happened, though. When it finally came, it came as a whole. By the way, I’m still not that clear about this business of me being a herald.”
“A herald is a special kind of messenger . It means you’re an announcer of a truth.”
“What truth is that?”
“That depends on you. But you might consider this: an older way of knowing exists within all of us, a way of knowing we can access by simply surrendering to it. Most importantly it is a way of knowing in harmony with the Female Spirit , something we desperately need.”
“You wouldn’t be talking about speaking, by any chance?”
“Among other things.”
“I’ve already tried heralding that. People thought I was nuts.”
“Well, you are in a way. New truths are always at odds with established ways.
That’s why people get burned at the stake.”
“I know. It hasn’t been easy. I don’t know where I’d be if we hadn’t met.”
“You may not know this, Justin, but our lives have become much more intertwined than I had ever imagined possible. I know you’d like to think of me as a kind of psychic Google, someone you could pump endlessly for information, but we’ve gone far beyond that.”
ALICE HICKEY 187
“How far?”
“Our fates have become intertwined. We’ve become linked at the navel as you like to put it.”
“How do you know that?”
“I can feel it.”
“Well, I don’t feel it.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. You’ve had dreams about me, haven’t you?”
“How did you know that?”
She began cackling. “They weren’t sex dreams were they?”
“No, Alice, they weren’t sex dreams. And by the way, there was only one dream.
It was terrifying. It predicted my rebirth. You were my guide.”
“Oh was I now?”
I recounted the George Washington bridge dream with the endless anchoring rooms and lyres and her leading me though the small hole in the anchoring room wall. I went on to describe how terrified I was that I’d be trapped inside it and how, when I finally came out the other end, I refused to follow her any further and began banging on the giant lyre.
“Was I cackling?”
“Yes. You were almost demonic.”
“Don’t let the cackling fool you. I have to go through the tunnel too.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It means you can’t be reborn unless I’m reborn too. I get to do it first. Did you think I was going to get a free ride in all this?”
“I never thought about that.”
“Of course you didn’t. As usual, you’re only concerned with what happens to you.
No wonder your marriages didn’t work.”
“Jesus, Alice…”
“Don’t Jesus Alice me. I’m as scared as you are. I’m going to get blindsided, Justin. I can feel it.”
“What about me? Am I going to get blindsided too?”
“What do you think? It’s the story of your life.”
“You’re right, it is.”
“Listen to me Justin. What happens to me from now on is going to affect you.
And what happens to you is going to affect me. That’s all I can tell you. Think about Chang and Eng if you need a visual.
“So far, all we’ve talked about are your visitations, but I’m afraid they’re only half the story. It’s time you knew who you’re really hanging out with at Starbucks. I was a very unusual farm girl. My own visitations began when I was around six, and after that they came every twelve years or so. At first, they were terrifying and completely overpowering, but they only intensified my desire to know who I really was, how I fit in.
“I probably could have accepted being considered a freak, the girl who sees things. After all, that’s how people like me have always been treated. But I 188 ALICE HICKEY
had to know what my visions were all about. Sometimes they were so overpowering I couldn’t talk for days; all I could do was mutely look at people, like ISLAUGGH . It scared them. It scared me. Don’t bother to ask what the visions were like. I don’t care to relate them. All I care to say is they were beautiful and highly sexual and yet horrible at the same time.
“The visions were so primal I could never really make sense of them logically, I could just feel them, and it felt like they were tearing me apart. But always in the center of all that pain was a white, intense light that seemed to know everything—that’s the best way I can describe it. I could see the light far off in the distance and at the same time I could feel it opening up inside me like a flower. I eventually understood it was telling me I was going to be a part of something beautiful, and true.
“I say this to you now as if it was all perfectly clear to me from the start, but as a young girl I was completely dumbfounded. I didn’t have any idea what the visions were about. T
They were absolutely terrifying, but I somehow also knew the white light was there especially for me, because I could feel it telling me that one day I was going to be living in a world where I would be understood.
“That
feeling had all the power and intensity of revealed truth. I bowed before it, even as a child. It wasn’t until much later, when I began to study psychic and spiritual traditions, that the visions became somewhat intelligible. I began to see the visions were specific messages and that they were about the Female Spirit and that I was to play some part in its rebirth.”
Alice went on to talk about certain aspects of her life and psychic ability. It was one of the few times I asked to record her because I knew she didn’t like the way it influenced the natural give and take of conversation. (“If it’s important, you’ll remember it,” was her usual reply to my requests.) Surprisingly, she agreed. Here are some excerpts from that session:
“First of al , we’re never born knowing who we real y are. It’s hidden from us. If we’re lucky, we may get to know our one true name. No one knows why this sometimes happens.
“Maybe the best way of understanding this is to think of the entire universe as being all yours. I know that’s the way you think about it anyway, so it should be easy for you. Here’s the difference, though. Think of that universe as being an infinite piece of Saran Wrap that’s pulled very, very taut. Everything on the upper side of the Saran wrap is the total conscious world. On the lower side is the total unconscious world. Now think of yourself as a marble that’s dropped onto the conscious side of the Saran Wrap at birth.”
“But where did the marble come from?”
“From ‘ Marble World’, who knows? It’s not important. The important thing is the marble was dropped onto the Saran Wrap. Guess what happened then?”
“It bounced?”
“Right. Maybe several times, maybe more, maybe it keeps bouncing. I’m not losing you am I?”
ALICE HICKEY 189
“No. I’m bouncing right behind you on the Saran Wrap.”
“On one of those bounces the marble stops bouncing. It comes to rest in a small depression in the Saran Wrap. You know why?”
“No. Why?”
“The Saran Wrap stops bouncing back.”
“What the hel does that mean?”
“It means the marble is where it’s supposed to be. The falling energy of the marble and the ‘snap back’ of the Saran Wrap come into balance. A scientist would give you a better explanation, but I think you get the idea. It’s all about balance and energy.”
“OK, so what happens then? Is the marble wrapped up to keep it fresh?”
“These marbles don’t need to be kept fresh, Mister Smarty. They’re always fresh.
Yet in your own weird way, you anticipated what I was going to say next.”
“Which is?”
“The marble does become partially wrapped because it’s partially sunk into the Saran Wrap. How deeply it’s sunk depends on the marble. Some marbles seem to sink in deeper than others is all I can tell you.”
“OK. So?”
“So each marble has its own distinct view of the universe. Some marbles see more of the top side—the conscious world—and some see more of the bottom side—
the unconscious world.”
“These aren’t really marbles are they?”
“No they’re not. But I thought you’d be smart enough to figure that out. Anyway, the important thing to know is that the marble always sees the unconscious world through the lens of the conscious world.”
“Why is that?”
“Because the marble always comes to rest on the conscious side of the Saran Wrap. If the marble is very, very light, it can only see the unconscious world directly beneath itself. That’s because the marble can only see the unconscious world where the marble and the Saran Wrap touch each other. And it always sees it through the conscious side, where the marble touches the Saran Wrap.
Sometimes the depression is so slight that the marble can barely see anything of the unconscious world.
“But the more the marble sinks, the more of its surface touches the surface of conscious side. That means it can see more of the bottom side of the Saran Wrap—the unconscious world. If you need some help, imagine you’re in a glass diving bel . The more it’s beneath the surface of the water, the more you see of the underside of the water’s surface.”
“OK,” I said, “I get it. But what does all this mean?”
“It means who we are, how we see the world, is out of our control. It all depends on how the marble bounces. You might say the position the marble comes to rest in is your fate. A rationalist will always be a rationalist and a mystic will always be a mystic.”
“Does that mean we can’t change? How about people like Saint Paul? He changed.”
“Saint Paul was still bouncing when he was persecuting Christians. Bouncing marbles are always confused. When he stopped bouncing, he became who he truly was.”
“OK, but what are you trying to tell me?”
“Stop bouncing.”
190 ALICE HICKEY
***
“I’m a very special kind of Dreamer : one who almost isn’t there.”
“What do you mean ‘you almost aren’t there’?”
“I may look hard and crusty, but I’m as thin as rice paper. I’m like Kiki in that respect, or the real Moses. I have no defenses left, no hard shell of the self. Under the right circumstances, you could blow me away in a second. The Spirit has seen to that.”
“What do you mean ‘the Spirit has seen to that’?”
“I don’t know how it happened, or why, but early on, right after I became aware of the Spirit as a young girl, I began to disappear. It wasn’t anything I consciously decided; I just started to become nothing; ‘no thing’ is perhaps a better way of putting it.”
“What does that mean?”
“I learned how to quiet my conscious mind until I disappeared, until nothing was left of me, until I became ‘no thing.’ I didn’t consciously try to quiet my mind, so perhaps ‘learned’ is the wrong term. Let’s just say I felt something calling me, and I went there.”
“Did you physically disappear?”
“Of course not. Only my conscious self disappeared. But you wouldn’t have known the difference: you’d have still thought I was there, but I’d be in something like a state of deep meditation. It was only when you tried to talk to me that you’d know something wasn’t quite right.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean I wouldn’t respond to you. I wouldn’t be there.”
“If you weren’t there, where did you go?”
“To the place of Forgetting. It exists, just like the mythic rivers of Forgetting and Remembering exist. They’re a part of the Stream.”
“What was it like?”
“It was something like Hades of Greek mythology : gray, vague, almost not there.
As soon as I entered it, I began forgetting everything. Everything. I had no control over it. It was instinctual. I felt myself becoming smaller. Shadowy. I couldn’t stop myself. It was irresistible, like falling in love with someone who’s going to do you a lot of harm.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. What could I do? It was where I was supposed to be. I could feel it. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was going through a kind of baptism. The Spirit
was preparing me for being ‘no thing .’ It’s an attitude, or state of being, something like giving up just before you die. I call it ‘the Darkness,’ because you can feel it in every part of your being. There's no light, no life, no energy of any kind.
“When I finally got to the point where I was absolutely sure I was going to disappear, I came out the other side as something else. I felt like I was on both sides of the Darkness, if that means anything to you.””
“What did that feel like?”
“It felt like I did and didn't exist—which is impossible. Western mystics say it’s the point where we become aware that the physical world is an illusion. They report it
ALICE HICKEY 191
to be a state of pure being; one filled with light and love. I’ve experienced that state, but my usual experience is somewhat different.”
“Why don’t you see what the mystics see?”
“I’m a bridge—a psychic—not a mystic. It’s where my marble came to rest. The marble determines how you experience the world, remember?”
“How could I forget it?”
“Don’t worry, you will.”
“Thanks. But how is what you experience different?”
“I don’t feel it as filled with light and love. I feel it as intelligent energy, that’s the best way I can describe it.”
“What do you mean by ‘ intelligent energy’?”
“An energy that feels beautiful and true beyond description. I know you’d like something more logical, but it’s the best I can do. As for myself, I feel as if I have no depth, none at all: no memories, no ideas, no sense of myself at all, only that I somehow exist but I don’t know exactly where, or how, or as what. All I can really say is I’m aware of that energy and that I am somehow a part of it.”
“Is that energy the same as the ‘dark energy’ of the Spirit’s dreams?”
“We’re talking about two different things. Yet they are related. You might say the intelligent energy is like the stillness at the eye of a hurricane.”
“OK, I get it; but what happens then? How do you come back?”
“The first few times, I had no idea how to come back. The Spirit pulled me back.
After that, I learned to come back by turning towards myself.
“What do you mean, ‘ turning towards yourself?’”
“It’s not a physical movement or a conscious thought. It’s more of an instinctive, unconscious interest in becoming myself again, becoming other than the intelligent energy. It comes from the deepest part of my being.”
“What happens then?”
“Something irresistible pulls me back to the place of Remembering.”
“And then what happens?”
“I become Alice again. It’s like waking from a deep sleep. This shifting back and forth happened over and over as I was growing up until it became second nature. One moment I’d be Alice and then the next moment I’d become ‘no thing.’
“The first person I could ever talk to about things like this was Kiki. I was almost sixteen at the time. You know what she said to me when I finished? She had the weirdest grin on her face. She said, ‘Jesus, you got some life Alice.’ When she said that, I started to cry and then I began to laugh uncontrollably and then Kiki joined in with that crazy cackle of hers. We must have gone on for hours.”
Alice went on to tell me that when I first showed her the myth, she recognized herself as a Dreamer, and liked the term. Before that, she said, she had simply thought of herself as being split between worlds. She thought the myth’s description of the Dreamers was particularly apt, especially in light of the fact that the Dreamers never know why they were elected, or selected, only that they were.
“I think I understand now,” I said, “why The Witnesses Log myth had such an impact on you: it must have been like sighting land after being lost at sea for 192 ALICE HICKEY
years.”
“As soon as I looked at the written version of the myth,” Alice replied, “I immediately recognized it as a description of that older way of knowing—it’s a description of how I live my life. But you must have really been at a loss, because you had no way of understanding the myth initially. I must say, though, that you were beginning to get very close in your own stubborn way.
“When I finally heard the oral version, there was no doubt in my mind. It’s an elegy, it’s spoken from the point of view of witnesses who are becoming more and more alone, looking back, watching their world disappear. What makes the elegy especially powerful is that it is being spoken by those who have no doubts whatsoever about the strength of that older way, and absolutely no doubts whatsoever about what it means to be human, to be witnesses. There is a sureness and boldness to the myth that went right down my spine.
“You were right, by the way, in thinking the myth was a description of the nature of early consciousness. In fact it’s a perfect description. You were also right saying it’s still with us, buried underneath our new consciousness. Despite being buried it still supports us—like a good mother should—except the new baby has come to believe he’s standing on his own two feet. But if you took it completely away, our current self-reflective, explaining consciousness would be lost. It’s very proud of itself, but it’s nothing more than a very attractive shimmer on the surface of the waters of the deep. We’d be full of ideas with no emotional roots. We’d be crazy.
“Think about this, too: the speakers of the myth are telling us about that older way of knowing, but they are speaking collectively for the entire human race. And, as you discovered, they are using an older frame of reference. That’s why the entities seemed so foreign to you, and why they seem so foreign to anybody with a modern mind.
“Anyway, think about all that, and then think about what you told me earlier, that the central drama of the myth is identical to what occurs within us when a poem comes to us, especially a speaking, the kind of poetry ISLAUUGH
would have known.
“Oh, one more thing. Diane was right on about ISLAUGGH meaning
‘laugh.’ She shouldn’t have doubted her instincts. It has nothing to do with Gaelic or Celtic, it’s just a good old English pun: ‘ is laugh, am laugh. ’ Maybe it would be easier if you thought about it as ‘ I am cackling. ’”
ALICE HICKEY 193
Chapter 39: I Have Some Doubts about Alice
October 2005, Sarasota, Starbucks
Despite all that Alice had been saying to me about the reemergence of the Female Spirit, I wasn’t quite convinced. I didn’t have any basic doubts about what she was saying—it made sense—but her attitude was a bit too messianic for me. I wasn’t a stranger to messianic moods. I’d had a good taste of it after speaking first came to me. Those moods can cloud an otherwise critical mind. Which is what seemed to be happening to Alice, because Alice—more than anybody—knew time was the least reliable part of any psychic information. Yet her entire life seemed to hang on her belief that the reemergence was about to occur.
What it all boiled down to was this: while I now understood—thanks to Alice—
that the Female Spirit was the cradle in which both the myth and poetry rocked, I didn’t have much interest in pursuing it beyond that. The Female Spirit wasn’t keeping me awake at nights. It was the Witnesses who were doing that. The one entity I thought I understood didn’t seem quite that transparent anymore.
I knew Alice would probably want to talk to me about the Female Spirit, but I was determined to head her off at the pass. As soon as we sat down, I brought up the Witnesses’ strange claim they were equal if not superior to both the Visitors and Listeners.
“The thing that’s so odd about it,” I said, “is they’re clearly dependent on both the Visitors and Listeners for many things.”
“It’s a recurring theme in many creation myths,” Alice replied. “It seems we’re a very pugnacious lot, like barking, yapping dogs. I think it’s our instinctive recognition of the special place human beings play in creation—that without us, as you like to say, there would be no creation worth talking about.
“Early humans may have respected, even revered, their animal brothers, but there is never any doubt who was top dog. That attitude extends to the Gods as well. They were always being challenged by their human creations. Sometimes we would get away with it until the Gods gave us a well-aimed kick in the ribs.
You might say that those kicks gave us something to really yap about.”
“I can still feel them,” I said. “You’d think I’d have seen them coming.”
“Dogs like you never see them coming.”
“Thanks. But listen, Alice, I wanted to say something about your seeing the myth as an announcement of the re-ascendance of the Female Spirit.”
“I didn’t say the myth was an announcement of anything—I said it was a description of the consciousness we had when the Female Spirit was dominant. If any announcement took place, it was through ISLAUGGH.”
“She’s a very bedraggled herald if you ask me. I don’t know how to say this to 194 ALICE HICKEY
you, but I think you’re pushing this reemergence thing.”
She looked at me as if she were tryi