IS IT REAL?
 by Dirk Vander Ploeg

When I was child, I read a book by an English author, Dennis Wheatley. The book was titled "The Devil Rides Out". It was probably because I was at an impressionable age, but that book has remained in the back of my mind for over 40 years. The book basically was an adventure story dealing with the Occult, magic talismans, spells and unearthly beings. I would highly recommend it. At the right is a picture of "Baphomet" the composite idol said to have been worshipped by the Knights Templar.

This reading, inspired by my brother who always read about peculiar subjects, particularly the occult, was to launch me on a reading frenzy which lasted nearly twenty years.

The following are not statements of fact, but my general understanding of the subject. I will be adding to this column on a weekly basis. Your comments as always are welcome.

Before mankind walked on the earth, this planet was inhabited by the Old Ones. The Old Ones were giants, who were not man and were not gods. Biblical scholars might interpret the Old Ones as Angels. In the Bible it states the Angels ruled Heaven and Earth, and all things in between. As we know, some Angels were considered good and some not, as Lucifers' Fall from Heaven proves. Folklore from Greece tells us tales of the Old Ones. The Greeks called them Gods, but they were just higher beings.

Zeus, was said to be king of gods and men. He would lose his temper and start throwing thunderbolts, but he was no bully and did have a strong sense of justice. He was married and his wife, Hera apparently henpecked him endlessly. Zeus, may have been king of the gods but liked to take a tumble with a pretty girl when he saw one. Aphrodite, the starry-eyed, born of the foam, had no inhibitions. But what a horrid mother-in-law she proved to be when her son, Eros, brought home little Psyche! Apollo, the great musician was a cruel master, but he loved beauty. His father, Zeus had taken as his own, the sky and the earth, and his brothers Poseidon and Pluto had taken the sea and the underworld, so Apollo created the island of Rhodes for himself. Pan and Zeus and Hercules were all beings from the beginning of recorded time. Television programs such as Hercules and Zena have brought these Old Ones back to life, at least on the television screen.

These beings had great power and lacked for nothing. The Old Ones were masters over beings not quite human, today we would call them leprechauns, fairies or little people. There were also all the species of the animal kingdom. This was their world, and there was an order to it, but one day this all changed.

Man arrived! This may have been caused by evolution or by the seed of aliens being planted on this planet, or by God creating Adam and Eve: In The Beginning! The Old Ones and man tried to co-exist but it was not to be. Mankind did not need Gods and the Old Ones were used to ruling. Conflicts arose, wars started and continued endlessly. Many died. Then one day the Old Ones went away.

So, the question arises, where did they go? No where. Legend has it that they went to the stars, but I believe they are still here. This existence that we call life is multi-dimensional. We can all live in the same time but in different space. The occultists call these places, planes of existence or the astral plane. These are home to the mysterious places where ghosts are found, spirits of the dead, elemental beings and of course, The Old Ones. Immediately, after the Old Ones had left, man wanted them back. So they recreated the rituals and ceremonies taught them by Old Ones.

Modern religious services are copied from ancient pagan rites. Christianity borrowed many of its ceremonies from ancient and pagan rituals. When the priest, reverend or father invokes the name of God, or Mary or one of the saints, he or she is just copying ceremonies practiced thousands of years ago.

Modern and ancient occultists invoke the names of the gods they plan to beseech for earthly powers. The most famous of this century was Aleister Crowley. Crowley wanted to raise Pan. One of his disciples owned a small hotel on the Left Bank in Paris. Crowley, with his twelve disciples, took it over for the weekend and the servants were given a holiday. On Saturday night a big room at the top of the house was emptied of all its furniture, swept and garnished. Crowley and his principal disciple, MacAleister, were to perform the ceremony there, while the other eleven remained downstairs. He told them that, whatever noises they might hear, in no circumstances were they to enter the room before morning.

Down in the little restaurant a cold dinner had been prepared. The eleven had supper and waited uneasily. They all had a great deal to drink, but were only moderately drunk.. By midnight the place had become intensely cold. They heard shouting and banging in the room upstairs, but obeyed orders not to go up. In the morning they did go up. The door was locked and they got no reply to their anxious calls, so they broke it down.

Crowley had raised Pan all right. MacAleister was dead and Crowley, stripped of his magician's robes, was a naked gibbering idiot crouching in a corner. Before he was fit to go out again, he spent four months in a mental hospital.

The Egyptians had secret societies which practice magic. The Rosicrucians (The Rosey Cross), The Templar Knights, The Masonic Lodge all practice ceremonies which are thousands of years old, which evoke spirits. This is not the David Copperfield variety, but it is Magic. The Occult is man's deepest and oldest form of magic. There is no black magic or white magic, just good or bad intentions or uses for the magic.