Rome and the Vatican on my mind, I’m descending the stairs of my house for an early morning jaunt as a male appears to my left in the bike lane, a tune oozing from a curious device. I reach the bottom as he arrives directly in front of me, and I realize he’s a dead ringer for the historical Jesus. He turns to me and says he’s been wandering the streets, lost, searching for something. I try to find out what through the ethereal music which seems to illuminate him…form a feeble aureole around his head. It instantly vaporizes so I wonder if this was an effect of a flash of sunlight invading the whirling mist. He says that the music is from the “Bible and a Beat” channel on YouTube. Another tune percolates from his device, shifting to a different spiritual octave, and we lock gazes as he edges down the hill. I watch him descend, sylphlike, against the backdrop of the hazy mountain silhouette, tempted to chase after him. But the horizon appears to swallow him up.
The question of whether he disappears spritzes my sensorium, and I slap my face to get the semblance of an answer. None is forthcoming. Shadows pass over the house and the misting returns. I recline on the steps and commit this visual field to memory.
I recently published a novel—The Accidental Jesus—set here in San Pedro, St. Peter’s town, which revolves around a former resident who returns for a high school reunion after a long absence. He resembles the historical Jesus. I’m wondering if there’s a connection between this book and this vision. The accidental Jesus character and the story which conditions him have stewed in my conscious and subconscious minds for several years. Perhaps I transited fitfully from dream state to wakened vision, errant fragments from the former spilling into the latter, and this conjured an apparition!
I’ve been dreaming a lot lately, about Rome and especially the Vatican where I spent time some months ago when accepting a prize for my novel which was dedicated to Pope Francis. The details of my dreams tend to quickly vaporize. So maybe that morning my dream state extended for a short time, the substance so potent that it needed more space and time to mature.
A snippet from a psych class that’s stuck with me about the dream state rushes me. The brain weaves together emotionally charged experiences and older memories into creative stories. I wonder what experiences and memories sandwiched my dream state. What did I do recently that gave me an emotional charge?
Let’s see. Yesterday I passed by that bar on 9th Street on the way to…the bank. Yes, the bank. A soused male stumbled out the door and nearly clipped me from the side, careening into a waste receptacle. Just another satisfied customer from a dive bar in a town known for this cultural jewel. His face haunted me momentarily. But I did my business at the bank and then moseyed up to Gaffey Street to visit someone. Several people were gathered on the corner, appearing to protest something, a helicopter hovering above. They were exchanging words with the honking cars streaming by. Humdrum incidents on another day in Mayberry RFD west. I can’t imagine they would inspire an emotional charge. Wait, maybe this was a dream! I can’t tell for sure.
It’s hard to believe these situations and figures could somehow cross over the threshold between consciousness and subconsciousness and explode into a new mental configuration.
I couldn’t recall anything that emotionally charging before this, so I re-ran the reel of yesterday’s story. There is something about that male who cascaded from the bar. He doesn’t exactly seem familiar. It’s something about his…face. No, his head! It’s completely bald. He has a beard, a goatee that’s…How could I have suppressed this! It’s a scraggly Vladimir Lenin, the domed figure who’s an inconspicuous catalyst in the novel, the shadowy antagonist to the main character, the accidental Jesus.
I can’t make out the figures in that protest or what they’re shouting at the passing cars. But something’s familiar about that corner. My mind was probably flush with the collision at the bar. Jesus something. Jesus! Is it that real life group that usually hangs on Gaffey Street and proselytizes the second coming of Christ? They’re a character in my novel as well, a “growth” that’s obsessed with the accidental Jesus. It stalks him through the city, believing he’s the second coming of Jesus Christ. This pressure over the course of several chapters climaxes when the growth captures him, carrying him to a mound in a park where he, now the “Jesus” he was assumed to be, speaks to God through a sermon as Jesus. This is too much to contemplate. How could this incident have occurred right after the collision with the domed figure?
This had to be a dream. My day of reality was replaced by a previous dream that I recollected! How could a previous dream invade my waking life as I concentrated on recalling what happened in it? I must be confusing dreams and reality. Wow! Am I having a breakdown? Losing my grasp on reality? This can’t be…How could I prove it one way or another? I could be in a dream now, victimized by some cosmic snafu or colossal psychic or social reboot and searching for an exit stream. I slapped my face again and…
This must be the area. But the numbers don’t seem to match. Hope what I’m seeing is really happening. I don’t recall being in this part of Venice before. Maybe I crossed over the border into…Wait! Did she say…She said Venice but…Maybe it was next to Venice! Whenever I hear the word Venice I reach for my…for my what? Where was I going with that? The memories from this place! They flood in so fast I swoon…struggle to sort through the conflicting emotions. I can’t be in a dream now. No more.
There, the sign. It’s Marina del Rey! What a contrast to Venice, its architectural diversity and feeling of living inside a work of art. This place seems to be a developer’s dream, a hurriedly thrown together hint of Miami, a gridded testimony to temporary living, blocks and blocks of mostly the same condos and apartments. What’s a shrink doing in a place like this? Maybe I got the wrong referral. They said she’s a super healer, a visionary shaman who can bridge the physical and spiritual worlds, enter altered states of consciousness to access unseen realms. That’s quite a reference. I’m not sure these qualifications will be needed to figure out my meager mental miasma. On second thought, there might be a lot of alienated victims here. Good for biz.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Do you know where this address is?”
“Sure. You go down this street for about three blocks and turn left. It should be in the next block.”
“Thank you!”
Pleasant so far. Just keep strolling along. It feels good to be moving. Maybe that’s all the therapy I need! That looks like the street sign. This stretch of buildings seems a bit more interesting. And they’re not far from the water.
Here we are. I don’t think I’ve slipped back into a dream state. But how can I tell? Nice building. There she is…on the third floor. Lorraine Mercury, Psycho-Spiritual and Existential Therapy. No intercom. Okay, last chance to change your mind. Is my mind capable of making that decision? I surrender to you, healer.
Not exactly who I expected. But then what do I know about…
“Welcome! You must be my 2 o’clock. Apologies for the messy place. I haven’t had much time for domestic duties this week. Follow me into the studio.”
“You know my name. What’s yours?”
“Just call me…Alias.”
“Okay. It’s your…privilege!”
“Where’s the couch, Doc?”
“I’m not a…Doc and…I don’t do couch therapy. That’s the talkin’ cure. Talk is necessary at the start, but action produces change. Plus it assumes there are diseases and neuroses that can be eliminated to achieve a normal condition. Are you diseased or neurotic, Mr. Alias? Do you want to be normal?”
“To be perfectly honest, Ms. Mercury…I don’t feel much of anything right now.”
“Are you okay?”
“I…” Her eyes! They’re like lasers scoping my mind. I can barely make out her physical presence.
“Have a seat in one of my chairs. They’re specially constructed to keep you upright and intensely conscious and full of energy.”
“It feels…Let me see. I feel a bit hyper.”
“That’s in your mind. Does my presence make you nervous?”
“No…I don’t feel nervous…exactly. I’m facing the…”
“Unknown?”
“Yeah, that’s more like it.”
“That’s…I hate to use the word…normal. Does your sitting position make you feel stronger and more clear-headed?”
“I’m not sure. Maybe. I think I’m feeling more awake.”
“Good. This should continue if…Have we met before? You seem familiar.”
“I don’t…know. I’m having a hard time seeing you clearly. I don’t think so. This lighting…It’s bright and there’s a hazy film between you and me.”
“You must mean the bluish cast. It increases dopamine in your system…Helps keep you alert, sharpen your focus. Standard.”
“I feel alert.” I’m getting there but I still can’t see her clearly. Her image seems to shift. I hope I’m not slipping back into a dream state!
“Did you have another name before…Alias?’
“I did.”
“Okay. So…You said that you thought you were confusing dream and reality and needed someone to help you sort that out. Think you’re in a dream now?”
“I’m not sure but…I might be.” Her eyes! I still can’t make out her physical appearance clearly. Her eyes seem to dart straight through the bluish haze into my mind.
“Do you have any idea when this started and what might’ve set this off?”
“Not for certain but I think it began one morning…early in the morning when I woke up abruptly from a dream which I quickly forgot and instantly exited my front door to descend my front steps. As I reached the bottom a male entered the area directly in front of me on the bike path. He turned and looked directly at me. He appeared to resemble the historical Jesus. We chatted briefly and he headed down the hill. He appeared to disappear into the horizon. I wasn’t sure if he was real or if my dream had been extended. Since then I’ve frequently felt I’m in a dream state when I’m doing normal, everyday things. I often have a hard time telling what state I’m in.” Why won’t she speak? She seems perplexed.
“Are you a devoted Catholic? That could be the…problem.”
“No. I’m lapsed. I did publish a novel recently about someone who looks like Jesus. I did a lot of research for that. I can’t think of any other reason.”
“You might’ve secretly identified with that character…intuited some of its imagined qualities that lay dormant in your subconscious. You can’t absorb them consciously and act them out, make them a permanent part of your personality, so they bust out periodically in visions. Maybe that’s what happened that morning.”
“Wow! Where did you get that after only a few minutes?”
“I’m an empath. You don’t have a Catholic…aura I guess would be the best word. But your eyes. They’re Jesus-like! I’ve had clients who claim to be atheists but they act and live like they believe in a higher power. Have you been hanging around Catholics lately?”
“No…not that I can…recall. Well, I…did get into the mind of the main character in developing the story.”
“What’s he like? Did you create him in your likeness trying to come to terms with your own religious mindset?”
“I see…I don’t think I did. No, I’m mostly different from…”
“From?”
“I never looked at it that way.”
“Don’t authors usually leave part of themselves in their characters? Maybe the influences you imagined from writing the book shifted your sensibility…forced you to start un-lapsing yourself subconsciously.”
Her penetrating eyes seem to be extracting insights from my subconscious through my eyes. Is she a sorceress? She’s winning the duel. Her eyes are…more powerful in some mysterious way. I can only see…She’s closing her eyes now, dipping her head slightly. “Ms. Mercury, are you okay?” I guess she needs a break. She must be challenged to keep up her energy. I should slip out now. I’m more confused than ever. This might be another dream state. I…She’s opening them, bright-eyed as before.
“Sounds like you’re conflicted. In this un-lapsing you might’ve begun to secretly identify with Catholics out of guilt. Do you pray?”
“I haven’t since I was…I can’t really remember when. I felt something when I was in Rome recently…in the Vatican. A spiritual charge of some kind. But I never actually prayed.”
“Consciously anyway. Maybe flecks of that spiritual charge broke free and metastasized into your subconscious and you started to silently lip sync primitive prayers. At that point praying could’ve developed a life of its own.”
“You mean there could be something circulating in my head which has no symptoms?”
“Yes, like a virus ready to make you sick. Praying can damage you. Doing it means appealing to a person or image of power from weakness…passivity. You become dependent on higher powers.”
“You convinced me. I don’t want to become a card-carrying Catholic.”
“Maybe you already are. You were on the track to become one once the desire to deal with it in a book surfaced. Now you could be a victim, caught in a web of guilt feelings, seeing apparitions everywhere forever.”
“Guilt…I don’t think I…Can you feel guilt if you’re…lapsed?”
“When you’re lapsed you’re just no longer active. The passion has only been quarantined. Once in Catholicism’s clutches, it’s got you.”
“That scares me. I don’t want anything to be forever. I’ve always mostly lived in the moment, existentially.”
“Stick with that. Living existentially creates an antidote for neuroses according to R. D. Laing. But try and get the prayer culture out of your head.” Her eyes are brighter and more penetrating like there’s been a power surge in her head. “Living within its clutches manufactures guilt. It leads to the need to pray but the more you pray the more guilt you feel. It’s a vicious circle. You’re forever trapped, doomed to persecuting reflections, hesitations, and missed opportunities.”
“I think these issues are what made me lapse. I hope I can escape…My head…I just remembered. Ever since that apparition, if that’s what it was, I’ve been seeing some strange things. I’ll be walking down the street and the image of a priest superimposes on an unfamiliar face and then disappears. This has happened several times. Once I’m sure a priest was following me. I ran and ran and finally ditched him. Another time a friend of mine passed by me on the street wearing a nun’s habit. I tried to engage her in conversation but she vanished as quickly as she appeared. And frequently ordinary objects like pens, doorknobs, statues, seem to disintegrate. Sometimes they start glowing. Other times it seems like they’re trying to communicate with me.”
“You’re in danger. These are sure signs of guilt. You need to get out of this circuit as fast as possible. The only positive is that these can also indicate your consciousness might be developing. You might become more aware of your existence.”
“How do you know so much about…Catholics?”
“I’ve seen many different victims of Catholic indoctrination pass through my lair…casualties of a wrong-headed metaphysics, sheep flailing for redemption from their preordained moralities…release from their guilt-ridden bondage.”
“You see me as one of these victims?”
“The symptoms you’ve given me suggest you might be on a slippery slope. If you don’t check this drift, you might be soon headed for the seminary. It might be marinating in your subconscious.”
“I have no interest in any of that…I reject it all.”
“You may not be able to stop it. Once they get their designs into your head you can easily flip, convert to full faith. A convergence of circumstances and a rush of passion might groom you for messiah.”
“I don’t…Is there hope for me?””
“You need to act quick to find out how deeply these designs have penetrated your mind. If they haven’t yet, then you need to create a buffer so they never will. I do this through meditation. Learning to meditate gives you the power to control your spiritual life. You act to realize yourself…break your dependency on God-surrogates and higher beings.”
“Isn’t that escapism? You get lost in a sleepy state and stop thinking?”
“It’s the opposite. When you meditate you alter your breathing and become more relaxed. This activates energy dormant within the body which rises through your spinal column and clears blocked pathways. Your consciousness expands and gives you access to your divine nature. The body is a temple. Its energy and pleasures open a path to the divine, to a God-Union. Not the institutional God…The God beyond God.”
“This will allow me to separate dream from reality?”
“Yes. You’ll be able to see and think more clearly…cut through the clutter of false appearances…cancel the moral code that creates guilt…commit yourself to wholesome choices without hesitation.”
“I can do this by just breathing different and relaxing?”
“Not exactly. But your breathing must start to change. Do you have a tingling sensation in your back…your spine?”
“I’m feeling something. How did you do this?”
“Your chair…It’s conformed to make you involuntarily meditate.”
Where am I? This room…There’s barely any light. Only one small window but it’s covered. Looks like a storage space. I wonder how long I’ve been here. Where’s my healer?! The last thing I remember my body was…feeling funny. The chair…yeah, the chair. What did she say about…I can’t…Just this tingly feeling in my back. My spine, that was it. And I began to see…not better but differently. I wonder what happened after that. I feel strong…renewed now. But what am I doing on this cot and in this room? I…
“Well, you’ve come back to life!”
“I was dead?”
“No, not literally. Though for a moment I wasn’t so sure. You passed out as we were about to finish…typical for the first session.” The shadows…I can’t see her eyes.
“Why am I in this room?”
“It’s the recovery room.”
“How long have I been here?”
“Only a few hours. You should get up now and start moving around. Get the circulation flowing again.”
“I feel revived. What did you do to my body?” I wish she would turn so I could see her eyes.
“It’s your mind. Your mind and body are now mated in a more productive relationship. Your consciousness is synergized. Let’s go back to the studio. It looks like your gait and posture have improved. Your color is even more natural.”
“Are you going to put me back in that chair?”
“No, sit here on the sofa.” The eyes! They’re like before. Very bright. But now they’re pulsing in rhythm. To what? I can’t look directly into them.
“Do you remember what you saw?”
“No, not really.”
“What you saw will eventually surface at random moments. You will gradually adjust to a new way of seeing.”
“I don’t think I saw Jesus.”
“It wouldn’t be the conventional one. Why can’t you look at me now?”
“Your eyes seem more powerful now…more penetrating.”
“It’s probably the different lighting or…maybe your eyes are oversensitive from the session.”
“They seem…almost inhuman.”
“All too human! From Nietzsche, one of my favorite muses.”
“I’m not sure…I just hope my dreams don’t invade my everyday life anymore and…I’m free from the urge to pray.”
“We’ll see. When you get back to your place get a good night’s sleep. Get up at the same time you did when you first saw that…Jesus figure and wait on the stoop. Do that every day at the same time and see what happens. I’ve programmed you to meditate once religious images, figures, or apparitions appear in your visual field in any form, especially of the historical Jesus. Your consciousness will shift and cancel the logic of prayer. You will have the power to observe and order your thoughts toward truth. You will break your subconscious dependency on a Christian God.
“I…I’ll try. What…What are you doing with your eyes?!”
Well, here I am. Same time. The mist is even swirling. No people about yet. Not even much traffic. Hope Ms. Mercury’s guidance, her programming, works. I don’t want to look forward to endless mornings making a spectacle of myself for my neighbors. Guess she probly had in mind that it would only happen early. I hope my lingering impressions about that session won’t clutter up my potential visitation. Maybe they come with the programming. Maybe she comes with it. Maybe that’s what she meant by the programming of my mind. She could be a censor or even a muse. Have I formed a pact, a Faustian bargain, that will leave me with a debt I can’t repay? I don’t have much of value to trade. I’m not afraid of losing my soul since I’m not sure I have one. I hope this is not a self-defeating bargain. Anyway, I need help so…
There…Looks like my…visitor in the shadows between those bushes across the street! He’s coming this…No…No! That’s that hippie on his circuit through the neighborhood rummaging through the waste receptacles. A little early today. Ah, hippies and…the historical Jesus looked like a hippie! Couldn’t be. Have I slipped back into a dream state? There’s a wave from Mimi. Guess she’s back a little late from her gig at Paradise Island. I must be awake. Well, doesn’t look like anything’s happening this morning.
Okay. Same time. New day. Conditions are about the same. That time of year when mist and fog drapes St. Pete’s town. A perfect storm for spawning illusions? No hippies in evidence. An endangered species here anyway. Finally, a human presence. Jeremy is taking his leprous dog out for a walk. I wish he would get rid of…Look who popped out of that RV. The mysterious woman who sometimes looks like the Madonna and other times like Mary Magdalene. Strange, she doesn’t look exactly like either one now. She’s been parked there for several weeks. I wonder what she finds interesting about our neighborhood. She’s chatting with Jeremy and…now she’s inviting him into the RV. The more I think about it, the historical Jesus would’ve surely felt at home in this neighborhood. Maybe that’s why he or his replica appeared in front of my house. But, on the other hand, maybe he or the replica was targeting the hood and not me specifically. One or the other could’ve combusted as I happened to exit my house.
Looks like another dud. I’m not even getting a micro-buzz yet. Maybe I should call Ms. Mercury.
Hopefully the third time is a charm. The mist is lighter, but the fog is thicker. Otherwise, another morning on the stoop. Ah, the first activity of the day. Mrs. Grigorian is exiting to water her plants. I haven’t seen her for a while. Bless her. She’s giving some spare change to the bedroll in her driveway. Jesus, or your likeness, where are you? If they’re eventually a no-show, then perhaps this will prove that my original experience was a fluke of sorts, an optical illusion and not a real apparition. But how long will I have to wait before…That sound. It’s a copter staccatoing above the steeple of the Catholic church. Why is it hovering there? Now it’s heading toward the neighborhood. What’s it doing around here and…this early in the morning? I haven’t seen a copter for months in this neighborhood. It’s starting to circle over the area around my house. The pilot seems to be looking for someone. It seemed for a moment his eyes were peeled on me but…now he’s scoping the ravine across the way. Wonder what it’s searching…Now it’s racing back to the church. The bells…the bells are ringing as it hovers over the steeple. Do I want this? Am I conjuring it? This feels like a sudden invasion.
The door of the RV is opening. It’s…This time it’s certainly Magdalene, but she’s draped in loose-fitting sweatpants. What is she doing? That object she’s…It resembles the Buddha. It looks like she placed it on top of a hibachi. She appears to be bowing to something. A very odd-looking contortion. This is too much. A copter and a statue that appears to be the Buddha, a hibachi thrown in…These are in the novel too. This could mean that I’ve momentarily slipped into a dream state again. Help, Ms. Mercury!
Another slap in the face! I guess I’m back. Where was I? I’ve gotta find out what Magdalene is doing. But as I rise from my stoop, something distracts me. It’s a faint sound from off to my left up the hill that keeps getting stronger. I realize now that it’s music, though I’m not sure what kind. I look at Magdalene, who now appears to be flailing some secret code, and hear the church bells tolling an Angelus prayer, as the source of the music creeps down the hill toward me. It’s a pickup with a large boombox belting out a shrill rock tune that drowns out the lyrics. I see a sign on the rear of the pickup as it passes. It says: Jesus Freak!
These different sounds linger and fertilize, leaving a sound that seems free of each. The chant of the Angelus tempers the rockin’ gospel sound, and as the pickup edges down the street it fades into a celestial country beat that soothes and inspires me. I glance at Magdalene, who appears unsettled by the cacophony, and fall back on the stoop, wondering how these events happened at the same time. It must be coincidental, but why do I feel like I’m controlling this? Where did I suddenly get the desire to make this meaningful.
The mist has evaporated and the fog is lifting. Magdalene has apparently concluded her…She doesn’t look the same! What happened to her face, her hair? I want to race after her and…My mind feels like thought waves of energy are undulating through it. But I can’t respond to them. I still haven’t seen my historical Jesus. I see…I’ve never seen the neighborhood like this. Everything seems closer and…brighter. Now they’re further away. This movement captures me. There…the status quo restored! But now it’s brighter than ever. And objects are hyper-clear. I can’t make out the shapes exiting their houses or the ones now appearing in the street. From the get-up it seems like a spare-change-seeker is coming toward me. But the face is missing. I palm the figure to come closer, but it scampers away. It’s too much to process. I can’t focus on one specific thing. My senses are overloading.
Now something seems to be pulling me back into myself. I can hear myself breathing. A lovely sound! Now my body…It’s making some strange sounds. They seem to be in rhythm with my breathing. Now both are fading. I feel like I’m floating. The neighborhood seems more peaceful now. It must be a different time. Is this a flash from the past or…a vision of the future? There’s something in the air. If I can only make it visible! I sense it wants to be freed. What will release it? A faint garbling sound lilts the surrounding space as a Moebius Strip twirls in front of me. It gradually expands and then morphs into a spread of wide-open space dotted with stars and planets. It’s stretching now and I feel like I’m zooming ever faster through deep space toward…infinity. I don’t want it to stop. I wanna see what’s at the end of this mysterious journey. But suddenly a mosaic of shadows and wavy lines and pulsating blotches absorb the space and I’m in a soundless void. Then I hear what sounds like an echo. It continues for several seconds and ruptures into a series of cryptic screeches that approximate a language. Am I getting a message from…From who or what? A spirit? Some alien force that…
I wake up drenched in sweat on the sidewalk, wondering where Jesus is. I rush to grab my cell.
“Hello, is it you, Ms. Mercury?”
“Yes. Who’s this?”
“It’s Alias.”
“Alias! What happened? How did it go? Did you find Jesus?”
“No…I didn’t. I’m free. I’ve been meditated through a cosmic odyssey and I’ll never pray again!”
