Dead Magician

“I was expecting you,” said Aleister Crowley when Ore’s consciousness entered necromantic dream time.

“I expected nothing less, your reputation precedes you,” answered Ore, reflecting on the words as they left his mouth. Crowley looked just like the photographs Ore was familiar with. He had respected the dead magician since he was still a teenager, even though Crowley had died decades before Ore was born. But unlike most, what drew Ore to Crowley wasn’t his writing on demons, drugs, or sex magic, rather it was his research into mystical alphabets and his poetry. “I expected nothing less,” does this mean this is just a mental representation of my own expectations, he thought, how will I find any answers if this is all in my head?

“You’re wondering if I’m a figment of your imagination,” sneered Crowley, “what a wanker, if anything, you’re a figment of mine. I outrank you.”

Ore felt a jolt, though deep down he still felt that Crowley was acting just like Ore thought he would.

“Do you think we don’t get internet down here?” Crowley laughed. “Every age in history had some form of access to it, be it the Akashic records, collective unconscious, or divination of the knowledge of trees from the rustling of leaves. Each generation figures out an interface with the accumulated past, present, and future knowledge, each one as flimsy as the last. Every time what they tap into is a disappointment that doesn’t live up to its promise, and every time they eventually abandon it to the sands of history. Either way, I’ve heard your music, it has power.”

“Thanks, then I guess I’m not the first to ask: ‘Mr. Crowley, did you talk to the dead?’” Ore half-joked, quoting the old Ozzy Osborne song.

“Anyone can talk to the dead, the trick is to get them to talk back to you without it driving you mad. And this isn’t a question of some message that’s too terrifying to handle, which breaks your mind, that bloke Lovecraft really muddled it, though he had a couple good stories. They’re likely to call you mad just for saying you’ve talked to the dead, regardless of what the dead said. Which is pretty strange, since the dead are the only ones with nothing to hide,” Crowley continued.

“It’s like the dramatist Nathaniel Lee said about his 5 years in Bedlam: ‘They called me mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me.’ The true difference isn’t between noise and signal, but the power of amplification. Only the naïve think that reason or beauty is enough for a message to be heard above the rest. You need power to rise above the din.” It looked as if flames rose around Crowley in a kind of wrathful aura as he spoke with growing excitement.

“I agree. Then you know why I’m here.” Ore replied.

“Yes, every magician seeks power, the most dangerous ones are those who seek it for the sake of someone else, even as they know that the other is just their inverted reflection. Still, the secret of the philosopher stone has long since leaked, the cat is out of the bag, or out of the death box as the younger physicists would have it. Hell, it was still the 19th century when I first heard of it. I was doing mountaineer training in Switzerland, planning to conquer the Himalaya, not the Himalayas as some say, trying to pluralize the Sanskrit, it means ‘the domain of snow’ and there is only one, anyway, there I was in a bar, talking about alchemy, when I met this chap Julian Baker, a physicist and practicing alchemist, who told me about how this couple, the Curies, a letter off from the Furies, had recently discovered radium. Julian said that this would make transmutation possible, and sure enough in a couple of decades, the transmutation of mercury into gold was scientific fact. Oh, how the newspapers loved it, every other scientific headline was about how the alchemists were right all along, atomic alchemy they called it. Bram Stoker foretold it in 1903, in his The Jewel of Seven Stars, not that anyone still reads that mummy book, obsessed with vampires as they are.”

“Anyway, radioactivity is the philosopher’s stone, always has been, the secret to great power and transmutation, but also a cursed substance that causes illness and mutation. The Curies paid the price for their discovery eventually. My life and work was basically riding the wave of history when all the great alchemical mysteries were revealed in rapid succession, like a strobe light that throws you into an epileptic fit and you hardly know what happened when you come out of it, just struggle to pretend everything is normal and keep going. I kept living, even when it stopped being fun, because I wanted to witness the ultimate proof of the stone’s power, and I witnessed it in those bombs America dropped on Japan, twice, in case someone wasn’t paying attention the first time. After that, it didn’t matter much that I had long-since lost everything, I was proven right, so I was fine with moving on. Though, blimey, how I ended up in New Jersey is beyond me,” Crowley laughed.

Ore thought of the original Latin etymology: Nova Caesarea, a new empire? A new Caesar? A new Caesarian section?

“So the key to the signal is radioactivity?” Ore laughed, “radio activity, with enough power any noise can become a signal, any song can become a hit?”

“We both know that it’s not just any song or signal, but without the stone, you can’t complete the Great Work, if for no reason other than it takes time, something we humans have too little of. The Tibetans figured out some workarounds with their system of reincarnation, not rebirth, mind you, anyone can be reborn as some chump or animal, but reincarnation is an intentional act, like buying a new car, but in the West we tend to rely on machines over people, even if it costs us our lifespan. Besides, it doesn’t look like you have anyone anymore anyway.” Crowley snorted. “You’ll find what you need where you’re going, as before so again, as above so below.” The dead magician's form started to dissipate in a bright light that pierced through Ore’s slowly opening eyes.

He awoke in the early morning under the gnarled tree, the black cow from the night before licking his face.