| EXTRACT FROM "KINGS CROSS" CHAPTER 1 - THE CASTING OF THE SPELL To read more of Terry Donaldson's stories, please visit: www.abctales.com/user/terencedonaldson |
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| At the time I met Claire I was running a fortune-telling shop in Queensway,
in a very salubrious part of west London. Immediately adjacent to London’s
famous Speakers’ Corner, on the corner of Hyde Park, my clientele
attracted numerous wealthy Arabs and visiting Americans visiting England
on vacation or business. I had recently returned to England from the west
coast of Ireland, where I had been sojourning with my wife and child, and
where I had spent the preceding year in the writing of three books, including
one based on the symbolism of ‘The Lord of the Rings’, which
appeared as an oracle pack. My reputation was unparalleled- I had previously
been the tarot reading star of Live TV and programmed such as the Big Breakfast,
through which I had developed my connections with many extremely well-known
people in show business, and even politics. I would read people’s cards, but I would also go much further than that. I would cast magic spells for them- to influence people and situations to be favourable to them in their endeavours, in their careers. Some times I would cast spells using black or red candles shaped into human figurines, male and female, which would be baptised in the names of those these images would be intended to actually influence. People would be influenced to fall in love with my clients, or to leave fortunes to them in their wills. It was during this time that I was approached by one major publisher and asked to write a populist book of elementary magic spells, which I did, using the tarot as the basis for this spellcraft. My ability in this field was well recognised. But I still felt unfulfilled. What was this aching gap in my soul, this yearning for fulfilment? I wasn’t sure, but there was something seriously missing from the centre of my life, and I had to try and find what it was, let alone where it might be found. During the day I would make my way down to my shop premises, and spend the day reading the cards, palms, and astrological charts of the many clients my practice attracted. I remember the date very clearly, as the renowned date of Friday the 13th was fast approaching, a date very highly commemorated in the fields of witchcraft and ceremonial magic with which I had long been a member. In addition, a quick glance at my astrological ephemeris underlined the significance of the potency of the forthcoming Friday 13th- it was to be Full Moon that night as well! The Full Moon in the occult is a very potent time for any ceremonial or ritual working to be carried out. Any magic spell cast at that time is believed to be much more powerful than when cast at any other time. One evening, when outside the grey shroud of the end of an October day had settled over the skyscape of London, and the darkness and dampness of the forthcoming night had settled in, I began the process of locking up my shop, ready to go home. Strangely, a tattered and spine-broken volume of a book was lying on its side on the floor, and as I picked it up, I saw at once that it was a spellbook - a book dropped or discarded by someone that had been passing through the environ that same day. It was in fact a book of Gypsy spells, and, reading through the directions of some of them, I smiled at the simplicity - or let us say straightforwardness - of some of them. Whereas my own background in the study and pursuit of magic was founded largely in the study and usage of ancient alphabets- Greek, Latin, Hebrew, ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs- even Babylonian were some of the alphabets I had had to study and master in my early decades of magical learning, prior to developing the ability to cast spells responsibly. Along with this, I had learnt many long and drawn-out ceremonial practices, such as angelic invocation, and spirit evocation. This Gypsy book came in at a totally different angle, and I thought that it might be interesting to try a spell from this grimoire( recipe book) for a change. I noticed one spell which seemed to stand out from the rest, almost as if it were printed in a slightly darker ink or an almost imperceptibly yet more distinct lettering. That was a love spell, which, as I read in the directions, could only be cast under the light of a Friday the 13th. What a coincidence! That day was but a couple of days away! And, further, to cap it all my forthcoming Friday the 13th was to be a Full Moon- thus making the casting of it even more potent! How fortuitous!! There were a couple of nights to go before the actual Full Moon was due to arrive, and each night it waxed bigger and clearer, rising over the eastern horizon of London from where I could see it, from the window of my flat on Highgate Hill, which overlooks the whole of London. It was from here that the legendary Dick Whittington stopped to look back at London, and from where he heard the Bells of Bow calling to him to return, telling him that his destiny lay here. Just around the corner from my flat is still the ancient statue of his cat, a small carved cat with its head turned round to look down the hill at the metropolis, to commemorate this alleged event in history. From this window, I could look down over the GPO Tower, and down, further to the left the towers of the City of London, and, even further east, those of Canary Wharf. I was reminded by the twinkling red lights of Canada House of my days up on the 23rd floor, in which I had hosted my TV show, Fate and Fortune’. But every night the moon was rising more quickly, now increasingly like a barrage balloon, almost threateningly, like the face of an angered giant glowering at me in anger for having awoken it. But I was committed to doing the ceremony which, so it assured me, would bring my one true love- or soul mate- to me. During this intervening time I made contact with some of the female members of my society, or, as we call it- coven- who I thought might be interested in sharing this ritual working with me. They were, and I explained to them the items which it would be necessary for them to bring, and how to prepare themselves ceremonially for this event. As most of the members of my coven are very wealthy, finding the right space for this ritual was no problem. Over in Hampstead, in a palatial mansion overlooking the famous Hampstead Heath we gathered, three of us- myself, the High Priestess, and the Empress. In my particular tradition, in our workings we each take the title of a character from the tarot deck, and it is by that title that we are known and by that title that we know ourselves. The principle of anonymity and secrecy is a vital one, as we have been the targets of great persecution over the centuries, from Christians, and other zealots. Groups such as ours have sometimes been infiltrated, by journalists, by police agents, and even by other groups, for their own purposes. I had performed a great many ceremonies with both of these women over the years, and had done money drawing spells, love spells, and other rituals, some even designed to influence political events in the world stage. They were both, I knew from experience, very powerful. We all three of us changed into our robes- long blood red with long hoods which we used pulled up over our heads when in ceremony. Prior to the ritual we each bathed ceremonially, using certain consecrated herbs in the water with which to purify our auras, so as to repel the Beings of negativity which inhabit the Threshold and open up the astral channels to those creatures of a Higher order, with which our Order was- and is- aligned. Any kind of magical work is extremely dangerous, if you don’t know what you are doing. This is why those that dabble without any previous training with ouija boards, doing séances, and so on usually end up drawing only a Being of evil, which is almost certain to make them go mad, even commit suicide, or murder. We entered the ritual chamber, with our hood pulled up over our heads, each of us holding a black candle shaped as a dragon. The light from each gave off a green ray, as it was specially made for us and contained dragons blood, and other herbs, for magical efficacy. The ritual chamber was our Holy of Holies, and on the floor was a stylised triple circle, each inside the other. Around the circle were three floor standing sconces, into which we arranged our candles. On the walls, facing each of the four compass points, were the ceremonial glyphs pertaining to the elemental associations of each quarter. On the eastern wall, was a huge set of scales, held aloft by the Egyptian deity Thoth, the Ibis headed god, Lord of Justice. It is he who weighs each human soul in the balance against the feather of Ma’at to determine whether it is sent to the Afterlife or, if it has been evil, and so outweighs this feather, is instead consigned to destruction( recycling) in the flames of Hell. In the quarter of the south was an effigy of Cerberus, the double headed dog of the Underworld, who eats the souls of the damned. In some rituals in the very chamber I had seen this effigy come to life and this incarnating spirit be sent out to destroy a given person. This was always a very terrifying experience, and sometimes resulted in a nervous breakdown for some of the participants. But on this occasion the effigy- a stuffed dog, given a second head by its taxidermist- remained inert. In the western quarter was a statue of Ishtar, the ancient Babylonian goddess of love and war. This statue was reputed to have been directly excavated from an archeological ruin in Iraq, or ‘liberated’ from the vaults of the British Museum, depending on which version you heard. But from the emanations it gave off there was no mistaking the vibe that untold numbers of people had been sacrificed before it . In the northern quarter was a goat’s head, representing Cernunnos, the ancient celtic Lord of the Harvest, attached by a taxidermist to a human-seeming lower body. The ceremony began, first with long chanting, in a language called Enochian, which, so we believe, is the original language of the angelic realm, predating ancient Egyptian, Greek, a language of which there is no written trace any longer but of which we as Initates into the Mysteries are given custody. It was revealed to Enoch, that mysterious character of the Old Testament who, we are told, ‘walked with God and was no more’. He was one of the three people in the Bible, who, according to legend, ever got to have the ‘face to face’ experience with God . We three began building the psychic circle, and I could feel the goose bumps along my skin as the electrical charge in the chamber began building. The High Priestess slipped her robe off, and stood naked, continuing her channelling of the spiritual deities represented outside our circle, and which accumulated through our symbols in each of the quarters. You could even see clouds of various colours beginning to filter in across the normal field of human vision where the psychic forces were building, and intermingling. Here, and there, what looked like a human or animal face might appear through the clouds of vapour, assisted by the heavy odour of burning incense which was by now billowing up from the censor. Her heavy breasts hung like melons with their massive nipples jutting out almost sideways, swaying from side to side as she intoned the words of magical efficacy. With her eyes closed, she moved backwards to the black altar and draped herself across it, her legs parting to reveal a fresh bikini line, smooth as silk, and her vulva already beginning to gape as if in the first stage of a yawn, with the first hint of pussy juice hitting the air like a squirt of lemon in a vodka and ice. At this point in the ritual The Empress and myself began using the tantric techniques of ceremonial sex magic and with our tongues succeeded, over the ensuing hour of bringing our High Priestess into a divine state of arousal, or communion with our protecting deities. Then came the ceremonial consecration, of flesh on flesh, as each of our three bodies flashed and clashed in union, which, we believe, enables our ancient gods to come down and manifest in our earthly realm and assist us in our endeavours. Outside the chamber, after the ceremony, we heard what sounded like a huge dog padding around, howling. It seemed to be looking for a way in. It even leaned up against the door, making the heavy wood creak under its pressure and the drawn bolts rattle. ‘Don’t open the door!’ hissed the High Priestess, when the Empress seemed to be suddenly drawn towards it and made to draw back the bolts. Even I felt an almost irresistible compulsion to do so, but was able to hold back, forcing me to use every aspect of my training to close my aura and keep up my psychic defences. I shielded myself with Circle of Light, a spinning wheel of inscribed light which spins in a clockwise direction and remains in motion as long as there is any danger. It is an ancient technique, and one which artists in paintings of saints have tried to represent with the idea of a halo around the head. It seemed to work, but meanwhile outside whatever it was that we had inadvertently drawn down began to draw back its head. We could see it silhouetted against the frosted glass in the front door, the outline of the moon behind it. It looked like a dog’s head, but, whatever it was, it was huge. Then, with a shuddering sound, it began to howl. A day or so later I happened to be driving home from a tarot tutorial I had been giving. It had been a small group and an action which my Order had found valuable as a way of maintaining a public presence whilst remaining in the background. We had found it useful as a way of bringing new people into an awareness of the tarot, as well as of filtering out and then selecting those with special powers of membership of our Inner Circle, where they could receive special training. Not many that came to study the tarot under me fulfilled the strict criteria, though, in the course of training over one thousand people in one-to-ones and in groups I had met a fair few, some of whom went on to become witches, priestesses, and magical workers. A number have even gone on to teach the tarot, set up their own covens, and bring a special awareness of this spiritual vibration into the lives of those they meet. The power of the ritual I had performed was still with me, and I found it hard to so easily shake off its effect. Something very profound had happened. I could tell that something was happening, even in small ways such as how the traffic seemed to move away from me and allow me to pass whilst I was driving. Cars would seem to pull onto the side of the road and suddenly I would be driving on a relatively empty road- and in the middle of a rush hour! Whilst going out for a walk, the pavements would also seem to clear, as if someone had gone ahead of me with a loudhailer and given out some kind of warning. Obviously I was imagining things- but the line between intuition and imagination is very thin- and that between light and dark at times even more obscure. I have always found from small signs such as this whether a spell has worked- or not. I recalled the time I had on Glastonbury Tor invoked the spirits of King Arthur and Saint Patrick to rise from the dead and come to me. This I had done on national live television, when I had had my own show. Imagine my surprise to discover, later down the time line, appearing in the ashes of a bonfire in my own back garden the exact outline of a huge ancient king- with even the glowing coals as his eyes in the dying embers! This spell I had been prompted to do- by my guiding spirit- to cleanse the lands of Britain and Ireland of the evil which had grown like weeds and was choking to death the breath of this ancient peoples. After having performed this spell, I knew it had worked when I had the illusion that the police had sealed off the entire area (Hornsey and Wood Green)- in case something really dramatic was just about to happen. I remembered the day- the day even the birds in all the surrounding trees had stopped singing. At that time I thought there were marksmen hiding in some of the gardens near my house. It was a strange and interesting experience. Now, however, there was the illusion that I was being followed, who could say by?- perhaps by members of an alternative magical group interested in discovering the true source of ceremonial magic. I had previously been a member of the Freemasons- the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and had gone through numerous of their initiations- becoming a Master Mason, and receiving my Elevation to the Exalted 13th degree- that of the Holy Royal Arch of Jerusalem. This is special branch of freemasonry not normally open to ordinary masons (i.e. of the Craft- that is, the basic three degrees, or rituals). Each degree confers certain privileges, as it confers certain secrets. The higher you are able to go in masonry, the more of these interesting and very astounding secrets are revealed to you- by your Lodge Master). Although I made an oath to keep those secrets, even though I am no longer an active lodge member I am still bound as a Freemason to those oaths- and cannot go into detail about what those secrets actually are. But I can say that the jokes that reference stepping over a dead body- or human skeleton- do have a basis in reality, and that the skull and crossbones is actually a Masonic sign which the pirates of the Spanish Main commandeered. But my fortune in my Masonic career had met with even greater success than just this. I had actually met- and been ‘adopted’ by the man who has since come to be chosen as the Grand Master of the Order- a man of royal blood. I had met with him, and his good lady wife, drawn up their astrological charts, and even been invited to his 50th birthday party bash up at his country house. Arriving there, on 2nd April, 1996, was amazing- my wife and I were met with a party of 20 butlers and shown to our room in his 175 bedroom castle in Northamptonshire. It had been through this man’s influence that the really secret doorways of Freemasonry began to open to me- and I found myself in the chamber of Quartor Coronati- the Lodge of the Four Crowned Martyrs- dedicated to a deeper study and research into freemasonry and all associated secret societies. I found myself meeting a plethora of occultists here- from authors of books on the holy blood and holy Grail to members of the Golden Dawn- the old lodge of Aleister Crowley, the infamous occultist who in times past experimented with cocaine and heroin to get his visions. Invitations to join this group, and that lodge began to inundate me, and I was warmly welcomed. I was even invited to join the Knights Templar- and measure for my uniform- a white blouse overlaid with the red cross of St. George, and supplanted with the armour, helmet, shield and sword of a knight. I had already joined the Knights of the Round Table- a secret society based in Cornwall and dedicated to scouring the kingdom of evil- as represented by dragons-in traditional mythology and time-honoured folklore. That Initiation had been profound- involving a ceremony in the ancient castle in Tintagel and with my hand on a sword. This ritual involved me wearing the costume and armour of an Arthurian knight, and being sworn in as an actual knight. There was no oath to the reigning monarchy in this ritual, as is unfortunately the case in Craft masonry, but instead an oath to the sacred spirits of the lands of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. The taking of this oath on the blade of this great sword was a powerful moment in my life, equalling my Initiation into the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids back in the early seventies. This had been done wearing the white robes and blue headdress of a newly-made member of the druidic movement, at the top of Primrose Hill, in London, at Spring Equinox, just as the sun was rising in the east. Here, I had taken my oath on an ancient Celtic warhammer, in the ancient language of the Irish/ Welsh. During this ritual, my Chosen Chief- Ross Nicholls- made reference to this high spot of London being the place where Queen Boadicea of the ancient Brits rallied her troops for the attack on the Roman-occupied city of Londinium- London-in the time of the great Uprising of our peoples against their enslavement by this imperial power. Unfortunately, Boadicea lost the battle, as her chariots became bogged down in the mud of the battlefield- of what has since become known to us as King’s Cross. But Boadicea lost this battle only after impaling thousand of Roman women and children on spears and decorating their bodies all over what is now known as Ludgate Hill and Tower Hill. It was whilst driving through this very same area of London- King’s Cross- that for some reason I decided to pull over. Getting out of my car, I decided to have a brief walk around. It was a cold day- it must have been October 14th- the Saturday right after the Friday- in fact the very next day after the ritual in Hampstead!! As I was walking along, the door of a phone box opened, and inside was a young woman, looking very thin and almost suffering from malnutrition. ‘Oi guv’nor’, she said to me in a fake cockney accent that was straight out of an adaptation of ‘Oliver Twist’, ‘Do ya fancy a bit a’ biznis?’ She was making the internationally-known sign of the forefinger of her right hand pointing into the circle made by the joining of her left thumb and left hand forefinger- just in case I was thick. She was in her early twenties, with long dark hair, and shivering. It might just have been the cold, and her painfully thin jacket more suited for summer wear, I thought. Or, and more likely, it dawned on me, it was probably the first stages of a cold turkey coming on. This girl was looking for a punter, that is, a customer, and she was no Nell Gwynn selling oranges and apples, but rather fruit of a riper sort. ‘I fancy a blow job’ I told her, and merrily she traipsed along, only too happy to get off that windblown and miserable street corner. As we walked back to my car, we passed some of the characters which were inhabiting that particularly notorious part of London’s most dangerous redlight and drug-infested district. They were like characters out of Michael Jackson’s video ‘Thriller’. The girls looked like vampires- but not the cosmetic fakes of the fashionable ‘goths’ you might even still see going around. These were the real thing- and looked as though they hadn’t slept, eaten or washed for days. The Living Dead- and the girl I was shepherding into the safety and warmth of my car seemed grateful to get away from them. One white girl whose face looked like a burnt out house stared blankly at me- or through me- as we walked past, her lower jaw dropping to reveal several blacked out gaps where her teeth were missing. Her coat dropped open, and showed the most tired set of tits I had ever seen- they looked absolutely exhausted- presumably from the thousands of punters whose hands and cocks had marched over them, grappled with them, and done battle with them over the decades of this woman’s military history. As we pulled away, I switched the heating on up full and put some music on. It happened to be a tape of Enigma- with Gregorian chanting superimposed over surrealistic music, interspersed with sexually inspirational and spiritually invocative attenuations. But it had the effect of giving quite an eerie vibe, and brought back to me the power of the Full Moon ritual and love spell I had performed only hours prior. We sped off, and outside in the grey rainy day the fluorescent lights from the shops, amusement arcades, and saunas of the Cross glided past like miniature lighthouses fighting against the pall. The music was playing, and, turning it down a bit below the volume at which I usually played this track, I started the conversation with this girl. ‘What’s your name, dear?’ I asked. ‘Claire’ she replied. There were a few girls working the Cross by that name. I mentioned this to her, and she seemed to brighten up at that. It was a source of relief to any girl you had just picked up if you could make them relax a bit, and mentioning that you had ‘been with’ one of the other girls always did this. It signified to her that I was ‘alright’- because otherwise she would have been sure to have heard about me from her friends. The girls down at the Cross- although often in competition with each other for punters and the hard and cold cash that these men offered in return for sex- ultimately there was a common bond between them when it came to operating the grapevine which warned of predators, rapists, robbers, not to those that impersonated the police in order to bully sex or money out of a girl on her own and out late at night. ‘Yes, there’s red haired Claire, dark-haired Claire. But I’m Claire from Reading’ she said, with the faint hint of a west-country accent coming into her voice. The burr became stronger as the car seemed to find its own way along the grim, Blade-Runner-like film set of York Way, and Goods Way- the two long and barren roads which ran round the side of the old King’s Cross and St. Pancras stations. Alongside I could see the thick and silvery sets of railway lines shimmering as they ran their way northwards up to Scotland, disappearing under the bridge which jutted off along the left hand side of the road. My mind came back to the very real and – it now suddenly struck me - sordid reason that had prompted me to pick this girl up in the first place. But wait, she was up for giving me a blowjob, and wasn’t that my favourite? I mean, didn’t just a heave-to on the side of the road offer more enjoyment than a boring relationship, where you had a bird and carried her along in life, and then got shat on eventually? I had thought long and hard about this habit of mine. Even whilst married I had loved setting out in an evening to slope around and look at all the crumpet waltzing around at night, either down at the Cross, or sometimes up at Stamford Hill, further north towards Tottenham, also a red-light area but considered slightly less dicey than the Cross to go a-hunting in. Now and again I would see one that I fancied the look of- the old warhorses I left to it- but even the ugliest seemed to have bunches of avid fans. The amazing thing about the male psyche is that it is capable of fancying anything as long as it has a twat. In this respect, women have such an advantage over men. The ugliest man would never pull jack shit but even the wickedest old hag could walk into any pub and buy in bulk all the dickie she’d need for the week. I used to laugh mercilessly at all the straight wankers I knew who would have their full-on girlfriends and still not be able to get any pussy when they wanted it. What a joke. Even these poor cunts would have to go kerb crawling, or flat crawling for pussy top-ups even after going through all that shit - a bit like having a dog and doing your own barking. It was attitudes like this that had always put me at odds with white women, or, should I say, British women. They could tell if anyone could see through all their shitty deception and lies, and, for this reason many of them hated me for my ability. Still, who does like it when we meet someone who we sense can see through the outward appearance of who and how we might like to present ourselves, and see the real pile of bile that lies beneath the mask? Not many of us- not even me either for that matter. I pulled over to the kerb, opposite the old deserted underground station which lay boarded up on the opposite side of the road, just next to the Backpackers Pub. In this pub, all through the week, Aussies and Kiwis would meet up and drink their way through the night. Their girls would start doing tit contests, beginners strip, or pole-dancing contests, once they were all suitably pissed up. But it was an all-white show- and blacks were never encouraged to go there by the management. Otherwise there would have been absolute carnage, because a lot of the Jamaican yardies that were running the crack, weed and heroin show down in the Cross liked their pussie big time. And heaven help any man that might stand in their way of their taking what they wanted. Still, the Cross was awash with crumpet- men like myself were daily drowning in it, virtually. ‘Come on, let’s go in here’ I said to Claire. Puzzled, she looked at me with disbelief when I led her over to the partially bricked-up entrance to the old underground station. It was obvious she had never been inside here. Pulling back a sheet of corrugated metal, I showed her where there was a single metal door. Pulling the key from my pocket, I opened the door, and led her inside. She gasped as she saw what was really in here, and looked at me in astonishment for being able to get in here. This place had been an underground station till the 1930s, and had been shut down around then. It had undergone a great deal of refurbishment, and had been kitted out as a bomb shelter during the Second World War, but had never actually been used. Even I had been here only a few times, and mostly with the small team of people I used to lead out on Night Crawls. This is the practice of getting in past the No Go signs that governments like to put up around buildings they wish to keep secret, and I was the leader of a team which prided itself on cat-like break-ins and scoping out the innards of places such as this. There are hundreds of buildings such as this all over the country- above and below ground; nuclear war shelters, disused tube stations, power stations, factories, barracks, and inside them you can get to see some of the most amazing industrial-based sculpture and architecture. My team would meet up every so often and together we would scope out a target and then plot feverishly for days on how best to get in. Up until this point we had always succeeded, and with a 100% safety record. Crawling through darkened buildings is not always the safest pastime, as you can perhaps imagine. But it is an interesting one. On our last visit we had changed the lock of this place, and I was designated key-holder. Down inside was incredibly quiet, and I led this errant waif inside the bowels of this great creature. Holding hands, we stepped into the darkness. And were swallowed up. |
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| To read an extract of Terry Donaldson's life story, please click here. | ||