Something to consider when utilizing the Invisible Counselor Technique by Napoleon Hills; once you make the invitation, suspend all judgment and let the folks that arrive be who they are. If you allow, they will defy expectations. They will challenge and confront you in terrifying and splendid ways. If you are looking for extraordinary experiences, don’t just invite significant historical figures, but go big. Invite a God or a Goddess. Invite an alien. Not something so nebulously abstract that it can’t solidify, and not something so well defined by consciousness that it becomes chained to expectations. Name them, then be silent. They will manifest in their own ways, and in their own time.
Inviting the human counselors was easy enough. I wrote formal letters and mailed them. You can do this in your mind or for real. For real makes it tangible. My Invisible Counselor journal contains the rough draft of the solicitations. In the past I made a big production of letter writing. I sealed them with wax. I had a personal seal and everything. Letter writings were done by candlelight. When I discovered modern post office tech stripped the wax from letters and irritated the post office because they have to clean the machines, my ritual slowly came to an end.
That, and it seemed few people wanted to maintain a correspondence.
Is a simple letter enough to attract a Goddess? Loxy was well established by this time and had recommended I revisit the Invisible Counselor Technique, now that I had experienced magic for real. I consulted her and she recommended candlelight. “Are we talking Stardust here?” I asked.
‘Oh, no. I am talking about floating orange candles released on a river sort of thing, but Stardust is fun. I love traveling by candlelight.’
Loxy loves the color orange. Since meeting, I have always experienced her with an orange scent in the air. At the hint of orange, I look for her. Kissing her brings the taste of orange. She has a way of peeling oranges that leave a solid orange shell, with the inner stem where the slices meet, remaining intact. It becomes a candle with a natural wick. The fuel, a gentle oil infused with the smell of honey and orange pulp. The message itself was composed on shiny, holographic paper, with all the letters cut from the final piece, and stirred into wax like glitter. It was lit and released.
Hill had twelve counselors. I chose six. Jung responded first, in a dream. After the dream, there were conscious experiences of him, more than daydreams. Each subsequent encounter had been much more substantial than the previous, sufficiently real in the moment of engagement that I questioned my sanity.
Each encounter is more real and nuanced than I can render in words. My ability to write and speak on these things pales. My ability to write fiction pales. Some of the wisdom I have gleaned could never have come from me.
As I meditated, I noted fear. I knew I would be successful. I had a string of successes. This was bigger than a first date and I felt embarrassed that I even drew that as a comparison, wondering if just the thought would be the barrier to an experience.
I asked Loxy to be with me. She declined. “It is normal to fear a first meeting. There are knowns and unknowns that you alone must confront. In any meeting with the other, you must first confront yourself.”
And so, I meditated onwards, until I was unable to maintain focus, and sleep seemed imminent. I retired to bed.
Modified for sharing
No one gets the full, first encounter. The tome is locked and secure. It is my version of the Red Book. It is sacred. There are multiple iterations, some for sharing, some for nuanced exploration of personal health. My understanding of it, there are bifurcations and iterations I have yet to unpack. Like the many worlds theory, for every choice the world splits into multiplicity. I suppose if it is a simple choice, you might get two realities, but who among us is that simple? All human encounters with other humans result in infinity.
Dancing with deities results in a multiplicity of infinities.
I invited a Goddess. What was I thinking? I was curious. I was stupid. Perhaps naïve is better.
Would I be devoured or destroyed? Those universes exist, too. Is this the way souls are forged?
What’s left after the atoms collide is the true stuff of cosmic life?
A shadow caught my attention. Normally, looking results in shadow manifesting into a known thing, a nothing, and I go on. In this instance the shadow persisted. I changed my perspective.
The shadow was stationary, as tall and circular as a moon gate from one side, but from one side not there at all, obliquely it was hardly there, but full on, a portal into darkness. It was an ambiguous darkness, not ‘solid’ like a tunnel, but diffused like a stage in the dark of a theater. I was afraid of the edge of it. Would it cut me in half? Was the edge so thin that it could never be touched?
Inside was the kind of darkness that left you hesitant, using hands to verify it was truly empty.
Not completely dark. A soft, silvery moon beam, almost blue, was in the distance.
I reminded myself to breathe. The solicitor was now the invitee. What you ‘appeal to’ attracts you. Crossing over carried clear risk. There might not be a return. I wondered if I had time. I wondered too many things, which in hindsight, the passage persisted out of patience or deference. I asked for Loxy, and she was silent. This was one of those Yoda moments, where not even the Force will influence the influencer. “Only what you take with you.”
I think it important to note, this theme of boundaries of light and shadows is capitulated in every iteration of this interaction with the unconscious. Engaging is not always pleasant. There is fear.
There is pain. There is joy beyond measure. And sometimes, I find myself beginning an experience and aborting just due to overwhelming dread, speaking the word “CANCEL” to override and ground me back here in this world.
I stepped through. I didn’t look back. There was fear of falling. Each step was tested. Every inch of progress was hard earned, feeling without a stretched hand. Fear of hitting something, fear of being consumed by blackness that engulfed me. This was not the warmth of a womb.
I focused on the silvery blue moon beam. As I drew closer, it became a discernible two. A ghostly hint of a diffusion pattern painted the floor ahead, which compared to the darkness I walked on increased my desire to be there, not here. Closer still, the beams prove to be tall, thin pillars of glass. They were hour glasses! Illuminated, golden sands, yet, translated as silvery blue through the glass. To see the gold in the silver in the blue was a shifting in focal perspectives.
Was there a time limit for this experience? The pillar on my left- the sand fell from top to bottom. The one on the right flowed opposite, in defiance of physics. They both held the same time, as measured by the glowing, gold dust.
Between the pillars, and slightly behind, was a throne. I say throne because of the context thus provided, but it could have easily been a command chair from a future Star Trek like starship.
There was a black cat sitting starkly in the chair, tail circling front paws. I paused. It was looking at me. Again, I was reminded of Star Trek. The episode of Isis as a cat that only Gary Seven and Spock saw as human gave me contextualized constraint in mood; I am inventing this. The cat leaped towards me, perspective making it a panther descending upon prey. The suddenness of it was slightly startling, because it was unexpected, but before impact, the panther morphed into a human female, standing just by my side of the pillars.
I tried to look away. The floor was like moon light reflected through a swimming pool, ripples on the floor, but when I glanced down the floor was defined by clear rays coming from a distant source, the brightest ray upon which my feet stood, diminishing in intensity as it clicked as the clock ticks away from me. I stood at the 6 o’clock position. 3 and 9 tick marks were illuminated.
If there were other patterns hidden in the circle, I could not tease them out because I could not see past the female. Only in hindsight do I imagine there were magical symbols and defined constellations to be seen. Each ray on the floor contained the full spectrum, fluoresced through a prism. Prism or tears. My eyes were watery!
I was emoting!
There was an aura about her, like a cloak, emanations of energy, orbiting her. Rays departed her.
It was soft light, sometimes threads noticeable in the trails. Her skin tone was so mysteriously dark that if it weren’t for the light of the pillars and her own brilliance, I doubted I would see her tall. If not for traces of gold and art on her face, painted eyelids and lips, I might not have seen her as human.
The Goddess Isis was known for her stealth and shapeshifting abilities. She could be any human.
She could be a hawk or cat or anything. Did she choose this aspect to relate to me? Was I mesmerized by her beauty, the lights, her proportions, her height and stature, the seriousness of her scrutiny? She commanded my attention. There was no more even trying to look away. There were no thoughts. There was no breath, no heartbeat, no nothing in this moment but her before me. Gold sands froze in the air. Fireflies and stars remained in my peripheral vision.
She seemed amused. I entertained a thought. Have I done something wrong? Fuck! Etiquette, I should have bowed. Fuck, I thought fuck in front of a Goddess.
“Don’t do that.”
“Sorry.”
“No sorry. Don’t police your thoughts. You waste our time. I know you. I am here with you. If you want judgment, there are others so inclined.”
I was speechless. I was thoughtless. I was.
“This is normal. It will pass all too soon. Undress.”
I blinked. “What?”
“I desire to consummate our new marriage. Undress.”
I was not thoughtless at this point, but I had so many questions and things to share that I wasn’t able to even begin a conversation…
“You waste our time,” she said, a sand in each resuming its fall. Sand slowly dripped out, as if struggling to flow.
“I…”
“Unworthy? Who is? All is sacredness. All is profane. Neither exists without the other,” Isis said.
“Also, you worry about your other relationships. Do you suppose I am not aware of them? I know of relationships you are not even aware of. I know all of those who love you and hate you, and to what degree. I know people who would relate to you if only you were more honest with yourself. I know of people who would relate to you if they were more honest with themselves. I know every incarnation of you. You have had many relationships, many more to come. You have had full lives with me and me alone, many more without me. I have missed you, my love.”
Still, I hesitated.
“Do you imagine I exist in perpetual solitude waiting for the one? I am eternal. How many mortals and Gods have come before you? How many more shall I entertain? This is my concern, not yours to worry about. Is it not enough we have now? Let there be consensus, here, between you and I.”
I had no idea what to do. Would I have hesitated in my youth?
“Do you suppose admitting that I am as complex as you means that I am not loyal? Can a deity have even a solitary thought of another being that doesn’t have profound, intimate consequences? I have played the trickster. I have even bitten, with an antidote in hand in order to get what I want. Tell me you have not mirrored that for lesser rewards than what I sought!”
Micro expressions of irritation furrowed her brow and narrowed her eyes before patience resumed. “Do you suppose you are more vulnerable without clothes? Do you suppose I have not sorted every thought, realized or suppressed, you have ever had, in this life and others, like grains of sands filtered through my hands? Do you really suppose you can have a casual
friendship with a deity?! You summoned me, old friend. You will have me. I will have you. We were betrothed and married many times. Neither death nor divorce can ever separate us.”
Isis touched my arm, a knowing smile. “You will have clarity, after. Clarity always comes after passion. We cannot begin the great, existential evolution of your soul until we get these rituals out of the way.”
I found words. “I fear that if we submit to this path, I will want no other path but this.”
Isis laughed. “If only I had gold for every time you said that. It always wanes. And yes, after this, you will spend a lifetime trying to recapture this moment. You will seek me out in all your relationships. You will find me in every woman.”
“I didn’t expect…”
“That the Universe or Spirituality could be so sensual?” Isis asked, closing the distance between us. The heat of her person was palpable. It pulsed in waves like a heartbeat. It enveloped me like a hug, like heat from a fireplace, as illuminated tentacles enshrined tied us together. “The only reason you and I exist is love. Everything that exists is because of love.”
In my ear, she whispered “I love you.” Bitten. Poisoned. Cured. Killed. Resurrected. Repeat, forever.
Curtains drawn.
In one Universe, there was a fountain. Around the edge of the fountain were broken vessels, dirty cups, and just trash. Isis invited me to drink from the fountain. I could not find a suitable container. She insisted I drink. Finally, she came and took the dirtiest, most broken cup and scooped out water. She drank, cutting her lip, infusing her blood into the water. She fed it to me.
She bathed me with it. I bled with her.
“Never judge the vessel. It’s the light inside that sustains life.”
There are other Universes. Other situations and contexts in which she has made herself known.
Black cats abound.
I have sensed wondered, is the author of God on Harley, Joan Bradey , the recipient of a gift similar to mine. True, her vision had very clear boundaries. Perhaps it was just fiction to her, but that story felt as real to me as my own experiences have been.
With each counselor, there is some overlap in archetypal function. I can extrapolate that Isis, as I experienced her, is a gestalt of all the personalities and archetypes.
Is this fantasy? Perhaps, but it’s the construction from unconscious that makes it more real, just as being in a REM dream state feels real. Graham Pemberton — Medium reminded me today that Jung spoke of Philemon giving him insight that he could not have fathomed on his own.
Napoleon Hill has said that in regard to his invisible counselors.
So say I. I share this not to impress you, but to encourage you to make your journeys. Do your own invitations and discover that which is inside of you. There is one light, but many spectrums and combinations of spectrums to be teased out. This is the magic of light and life, creating and letting creations influence us.
