Peccavi

Thursday, 29 April

The seeds of inquiry that Leonard has planted in my mind have started to sprout in a variety of creative ways, this blog being one of them. But this new found enthusiasm for educating both myself and my reader has not been without severe labour pains, by any means.

At first I found remembering the conversations that took place at Elmfield House to be tremendously difficult but, as I have mentioned before, I now have an efficient system in place. I scribble everything that I can recall from our discussions into my notebook during the return journey home from Elmfield House and I type up my notes at the earliest opportunity to sit at my computer and write without raising Alex’s suspicions. Often important details such as names and bible verse numbers go astray, but I find that a few hours spent trawling the internet or chasing references in the university library can quickly restore the missing parts of each conversation. 

This extra-curricular research is having a debilitating impact on my undergraduate work as I am too distracted to complete essays and my regular trips to the library are unrelated to my classes, but my desire to learn more about Leonard’s theories has entirely surpassed any interest that I had in my coursework. I am fully aware that this obsessive behaviour will lead to difficulties with my forthcoming exams, but there is another issue that is of even greater concern to me at the moment…

Over the last few weeks I have become increasingly preoccupied with Leonard’s warnings about revealing hidden secrets and as a result I am starting to feel like a criminal for writing this blog. It is as though God Himself is reading my blog posts and the scribblings in my notebook and God Himself is going to punish me for discussing Leonard’s theories on such a public platform. I have Leonard’s superstitious mind to thank for that. But it is not only the revelation of this knowledge that is worrying me, the simple possession of this knowledge is also a cause for concern and my uneasiness has been deepened by a number of factors recently; overheard whispers passed between Leonard and Luke, a paranoid sense of being followed home from university and glimpses of shadowy figures in the street when I am out with Alex. I feel as though I am being watched, but I am not sure by whom. I have reassured myself that even the greatest magicians would keep notes of ritual words and spell ingredients and the true crime is committed in the act of revealing these secrets to others, in which case I am safe because I doubt that this silly, self-indulgent blog has many readers! But that is where my greater sin comes into play… 

I have a confession. I have drawn up the blueprints for the worst crime ever; a proposal for postgraduate study. Postgraduate education is a notoriously tricky business as competition for funding is fierce and a research proposal must be extremely interesting or immensely ground-breaking if it will stand any chance of catching the eye of a funding body. But I am confident that the raw material contained within my notebook will make for an attractive research proposal and, if it is accepted, then I intend to produce a thesis that will investigate the magical techniques that are present in the Synoptic Gospels (I hope to be accepted for an MPhil and then upgrade, with the MPhil constituting the first year of a doctorate). I suspect that sharing these secrets in such a public manner might alarm Leonard and he would be angered as grievously as the gods themselves, so I must be extra vigilant and keep my notebook, this blog and my research plans hidden from him. It looks as though I am destined to spend most of my time skulking around Elmfield House and the university corridors clutching these secrets to my chest like the paranoid magicians of antiquity! 

Now here’s the embarrassing part. Although I am confident that my scholarship bid will be successful and my research proposal will be accepted, I have nevertheless found myself toying with desperate measures. I was putting the finishing touches to the submission documentation yesterday evening when an eyestrain headache crept upon me and I was forced to turn off the computer screen for a while. As I sat quietly and waited for the headache to abate my eye fell upon a stack of books at the far corner of my desk and on the very top of the pile was The Omega Course. The book had remained unopened since I brought it back from Elmfield House and I had intended to take a closer look at it when I had some spare time, so I retrieved it from the pile, opened it and flicked through the pages. Very little of the contents made any sense to me and each page was filled with arcane sounding words and bizarre diagrams. The only recognisable sentence in the book was a quotation from the Gospel of Thomas on the title page that read: ‘whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death’. Quite a fearsome promise for such a harmless looking book!

One paragraph entitled ‘Spell for Success and Good Favour’ caught my eye and I switched on the desk lamp to take a closer look. I could feel myself smiling with amusement as I read the instructions for the spell. Leonard is right, I do suffer - and ‘suffer’ is the precise term that he emphasises time and time again in this matter - from a post-enlightenment rejection of the supernatural. But I was grappling with an element of indecision. Where is the harm in testing it? Surely every channel of support for my scholarship application should be considered – magical or otherwise. So I temporarily suspended my precious rationality, took a blank sheet of paper from the printer tray and meticulously copied the diagram from the book onto the paper, taking care to replace the key elements of the picture with my own personal details as instructed. When the drawing was complete, I folded the paper, pushed it tightly beneath the books on my desk and returned The Omega Course to the top of the pile.

Let’s see, shall we?

Me and my artist

Monday, 26 April

I realise that I have been writing a substantial amount of theology-babble recently and I have neglected to talk about progress with the portraiture work and, most importantly, developments in the working relationship between Leonard and I. On the whole our sessions have been very enjoyable, due in part to the fact that Leonard is easy to talk to and he has a mischievous sense of humour that can rival my own at times. For instance, he takes cuttings from newspaper articles and he edits the headline with black paint and white corrector fluid so that it reads something amusing or he will include my name, his name or the name of a celebrity or historical figure. These cuttings never fail to make me laugh (even though some of them address serious and tragic events!) and they often relieve the tension that has built up during a long session. 

I have been surprised to learn that although Leonard lives a fairly reclusive lifestyle, he is conversant in current affairs and he is familiar with advancements in computing, the internet and mobile phone technology, but I assume that Luke keeps him informed about these things. I have also discovered that Leonard is in regular correspondence with a considerable number of people from numerous countries around the world, as is evident from the brightly-coloured stamps on his mail. When I enquire about these letters he will tell me about his travels to visit his friends and acquaintances and the adventures that he has had exploring these exotic locations. It is surprising that he makes such a great effort to maintain these friendships and yet he chooses to spend so much time alone.

On a personal note, I am learning to relax and feel less self-conscious under Leonard’s analytical eye and we are establishing a regular working pattern that is helping the sessions to flow far easier than before. The inevitable drink/food/toilet break has been polished down to the briefest moment of disruption after which we quickly recreate the correct position to continue with our work - ‘rest your arm further down your lap….turn your chair a little more towards me…lift your chin higher’ - after one or two minutes of repositioning then we are good to continue. When the light gets too bad, Leonard will pack away his drawing board, wash his hands in the bathroom sink, prepare drinks for us and we will discuss how work is progressing - which reminds me, on my first visit to Elmfield House I had wondered why the bathroom sink was stained with a multitude of colours and now I realise that it has endured many years of cleaning Leonard’s paint-covered hands! Art is a messy business. Sometimes Leonard’s hands, face and bald head are covered with a rainbow of colours where he has smudged pastel onto the paper and touched his face or scratched his head. If he has been using charcoal then he often resembles a coalminer by the end of a session. Thankfully I avoid the grubby aspects of our work but the smell of the workroom has permeated so deeply into my clothes that, even though I wash them in plutonium-grade washing powder, each time I open my wardrobe at home I am greeted by the strong whiff of turpentine and paint fumes.

In addition to our work on the portraiture piece, Leonard is once again taking photographs of me. Most of the photos are deliberately posed, but occasionally he will catch me by surprise for a candid shot or he will focus on one minor aspect of my clothing that has fascinated him (he took one particularly striking photo of the glass buttons that are sewn onto my best lace top). One of my favourite photographs took an entire afternoon to set up for only a few seconds of camerawork. It is a half-profile shot with my hair tied high against the back of my head and a few tendrils of hair falling down onto my shoulders. The lighting makes me look rather sickly but that only adds to the overall charm of the picture. When I look at the prints that Luke brings to the sessions a few days later I am reminded of the date, the weather, the topic of conversation in the workroom and even the thoughts that passed through my mind upon the very second that the camera shutter clicked. But, in the case of this particular photograph, all that I can recall is the tightness of the choker around my throat.

When we are not working or talking about work, we are usually eating or preparing lunch. The kitchen cupboards are fully stocked with jams, cakes and biscuits and there are always yoghurts, cheeses and cold meats for sandwiches in the fridge, but strangely – and somewhat frustratingly at times - Leonard never has a ready supply of staple food items such as bread and milk. The bread bin is stuffed full of Cadbury’s chocolate bars and Leonard insists that since we are situated near to Bournville and the Cadbury estate then he is not being greedy but rather ‘contributing to the local economy’, which always makes me laugh. On one occasion Leonard asked me to name my favourite dessert and - without giving it much thought - I answered ‘profiteroles’. In hindsight I wish that I had given more consideration to my reply as he has since acquired a habit of stocking the fridge with mountains of profiteroles in preparation for my visits. We eat a box of them between us at least once a week and this has become such a regular occurrence that I have warned him that he will need to buy a wider canvas for my portraits in future!

There is often an odd smell lingering in the kitchen from a meal that Leonard has cooked the night before and he will save any leftovers in the fridge in case Luke and I get peckish the next day and fancy scavenging for scraps. I regularly find half-opened bottles of wine in the workroom if Leonard has entertained a visitor on the previous evening and Leonard will save the remaining wine so that we can finish it off together (I have developed a taste for his beloved Armagnac too and I’m always happy to join him in a glass at the end of a long afternoon). Thankfully Leonard has accepted that I will not be converted to a fellow tea or coffee addict and so he is storing large crates of orange juice under the kitchen sink especially for my visits, but he has, however, convinced me to sample a concoction of herbal teas that he assures me will aid concentration and help to combat fatigue.

My payment for our work is always in cash and although I insist that payment is not necessary since Leonard provides a generous lunch and the improvements to my self-confidence are more than adequate recompense alone, he usually stuffs a plastic bag of pound coins into my coat pocket when I am out of the room or he has an elaborately decorated brown envelope that he will demand that I take from him before leaving the house (his methods of payment are becoming more inventive and elaborate by the week). He is such a sweet man and he is always complimentary, deeply respectful and infuriatingly apologetic, but the most remarkable thing about our friendship is this: I have anticipated for some time now - and with a sickening dread - a request for a nude shot, but I doubt that it will come. Leonard is evidently not disposed to befriending young women with a view to asking them to strip off, which is a welcome surprise given the disturbing anecdotes that I have heard about this profession.

Although I am completely at ease in Leonard’s company, I find Luke’s presence at our sittings to be disruptive and it is difficult to explain why this is the case. Luke’s personality changes dramatically by the day and this often dictates the mood in the workroom; sometimes he is extremely charming and approachable, full of heart-melting smiles and a pleasure to spend time with, while on other occasions he can be terribly aloof, his face falls into the most solemn frown and he simply slouches in the cream leather armchair, awaiting his turn and wallowing in a grumpy, Byronic fog of melancholy. Most days he will just take a book from the shelves and sit reading in a corner of the workroom like a patient passing the time in a doctor’s waiting room until it is his turn to take the chair. He is particularly fond of the works of the seventeenth-century poet John Donne and Leonard has taken account of this by incorporating quotations from Donne into his sketches of Luke. There is, for example, a wonderful sketch of Luke in a wooden frame on the table in the workroom at the bottom of which Leonard has written the following verses from Donne:

‘Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not soe,

For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill mee.’

Leonard tries admirably at times to prompt a conversation between the three of us and when he is successful the atmosphere in the workroom becomes quite animated and we have the most fascinating discussions, but if Luke is in a dour mood then he can be very standoffish and I detect a hint of condescension in his voice as though he considers himself to be superior to me. I suspect that the intensive nature of the environment in which we most of spend our time together is largely to blame for this impression, as well as the fact that Leonard requires Luke to wear formal attire for their work (waistcoats, smart jackets, shirts etc) and he resembles an elegant Victorian gentleman most of the time, so I feel quite the philistine in comparison! I am also acutely aware that I find Luke to be extremely attractive and consequently I may be paying particularly close attention to his behaviour and reading nuances into his words that would barely raise an eyebrow coming from anyone else...

So there we are; a portrait of me and my artist. Apologies for the hotchpotch nature of this post but I am writing as the points occur to me. No doubt there are many other strange quirks and rituals from the workroom that I will remember throughout this afternoon but for now, much like Leonard’s wines, I’m sure they will keep for another day.

Possessed or Possessor?

Thursday, 22 April

I put up a good fight, but I was spectacularly defeated in the end.

By the end of Tuesday afternoon, my theory that Jesus was possessed by the Holy Spirit lay in ruins, shot to pieces by Leonard’s counter-attack. Unsurprisingly, Leonard’s explanation of the relationship that existed between Jesus and the Holy Spirit was entirely to the contrary of my spirit-possession model; Leonard believes that Jesus was the dominant, controlling force in the relationship and that Jesus had possession of the Holy Spirit in the same way that the magicians of antiquity had possession of their magically-acquired spirits. 

He began his counter-hypothesis by pointing out that the Gospel writers reveal that Jesus was able to transfer his miracle-working powers to his twelve disciples (and to a further seventy-two disciples in the Gospel of Luke) in order to grant them the ability to cast out demons, heal the sick and raise the dead, therefore the power source that enabled Jesus to perform miracles could not have been exclusive to Jesus alone and it could be transmitted to others at will. Furthermore Leonard said that Jesus and the disciples are capable of summoning these powers entirely at will and whenever a miracle is required and this contradicts the standard model of possession in which it is the possessing spirit that dictates at what time and to whom a possession episode will manifest itself. 

Leonard also mentioned that the behaviours that are typically associated with spirit possession are absent in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. He said that since spirit-possessed prophets and demon-possessed demoniacs were commonplace in the ancient world, Jesus’ contemporaries would surely have recognised the symptoms of spirit possession and we would expect to encounter allegations made by observers, in the polemical materials at least, that Jesus was exhibiting possession-like behaviour. However this is not the case and the evidence is, in fact, to the contrary.

Take, for example, the hypnotic or somnambulistic form of possession in which the individual loses awareness of himself and he is left with no memory of the events that took place while he was in the possession trance. Leonard argued that if Jesus performed miracles while in a somnambulistic state then he would experience moments of disorientation or confusion immediately following a miracle and he may even be unaware that he had performed a miracle. But not only do the Gospels authors fail to record any amnesiac or disorientated behaviour in their accounts of Jesus’ life, they promote a strong and recurrent theme that is entirely to the contrary; each time the Gospel authors include a response from the crowds immediately following a healing or exorcism the crowds do not comment on Jesus’ passive state but instead on the notable degree of authority that he exerts over his miracle-working powers.

To illustrate his point, Leonard quoted from one or two Gospel passages in which the witnesses to Jesus’ miracles comment on the remarkable authority that Jesus has over his miracle-working powers and he drew my attention to the recurrent theme of ‘exousia’ (a Greek term meaning ‘authority’) that appears time and time again throughout the Gospels. Then, as conclusive evidence for Jesus’ governance over his powers, he asked me to read the temptation narrative in Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. Leonard’s argument followed that if the Gospel authors intended the reader to believe that Jesus was spirit-possessed throughout his temptation in the wilderness, then the dialogue should not be understood as taking place between the devil and the person of Jesus, but between the devil and the possessing power (the Holy Spirit), therefore interpreting the temptation narrative in terms of spirit-possession paints the bizarre picture of the Holy Spirit - a spiritual power deriving ultimately from God - being tested in its faithfulness to God. On the contrary, Leonard believes that Jesus cannot be spirit-possessed in this instance since the Gospel writers present the devil as repeatedly attempting to exploit Jesus’ human nature by tempting him to use his powers for self-gratification (‘command that these stones be made bread’), to frivolously test the strength of his powers (‘cast yourself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning you: and in their hands they shall bear you up’) and to further his own authority and self-importance (‘all these things I will give to you...if you will fall down and worship me’).

By portraying the devil as appealing directly to Jesus’ human weaknesses, the authors of Matthew and Luke affirm that Jesus himself directly determines how his powers are employed and he can use his powers for beneficial purposes or for evil/selfish gain if he so chooses. Therefore, Leonard argued, the implication that Jesus had absolute autonomy in the application of his powers invalidates the possibility that he was subject to passive divine-possession and indicates, to the contrary, that he exerted a degree of authority and control over his spiritual powers that was comparable to the proficiency in magical spirit manipulation that was demonstrated by the magicians of the ancient world. 

There is no doubt that I will recall further details from this conversation over the next few weeks, but I have covered the main points here. One thing was for certain that afternoon - it is unlikely that Leonard will be joining the local church electoral roll anytime soon...

Into the Wilderness

Wednesday, 21 April

Leonard and I were eating lunch during our portrait session yesterday afternoon when Leonard fired a question at me that was entirely unexpected and caught me completely unawares. The question that he asked was this:

“You claim that you do not possess any strong religious faith and yet you accept the accounts of Jesus’ miracles without question and exactly as you read them in the New Testament. Why is that?”

I was taken aback by the directness of his question because - aside from the fact that it came somewhat unexpectedly off the back of a rather dull conversation about the overgrown state of the hedge in the back garden at Elmfield House - my personal religious beliefs have not entered into our discussions for some time, not since Leonard's initial enquiry into why I had chosen theology as a subject for undergraduate study. It transpired that his question arose from an exchange that took place between us upon my first visit to Elmfield House during which I said that I believed that Jesus was able to perform miracles because he was empowered by the Holy Spirit. Leonard had clearly been troubled by this statement and he had been waiting for an opportunity to question me further about it.

I told Leonard that I – like many others - have read the Gospels and the possibility that Jesus was empowered by the Holy Spirit seems to be an entirely plausible explanation for his miracle-working powers. I had no reason to believe otherwise and besides, no alternative theories had been presented to me. Midway through my response I realised that I had hit a raw nerve because Leonard became visibly agitated and he told me quite forcefully that “there is always an alternative explanation!” 

He asked me to think rationally about the relationship that exists between Jesus and his miracle-working powers in the Gospels and then to explain to him, sensibly and coherently, exactly how the Holy Spirit bestows upon Jesus the ability to perform healings and exorcisms. Picking up on Leonard’s ‘bestowment’ terminology, I flailed around wildly with concepts relating to spirit possession, charismata and ‘the gifts of the Spirit’ and I finally settled on a divine possession model; that the Holy Spirit had possessed Jesus and it was using him as a conduit through which it performed good works. Leonard snorted at my answer and he said that if I could convincingly explain how the Holy Spirit used Jesus as a passive medium through which it acted in the world then he would ‘be converted to Christianity and start going to church this very Sunday’. My heart sank upon hearing his stubborn resolve but I accepted the challenge and began to present evidence to support my possession theory.

My first piece of evidence came from the crowd’s observation in Mark 3:21 that Jesus is ‘beside himself’ or he is ‘out of his mind’. Since being absent or disconnected from oneself is a major indicator of spirit possession, I argued that this passage implies that Jesus’ soul had been somehow displaced and replaced by a new spiritual entity. Leonard answered that he seriously doubted that the crowd had carried out an in-depth psychological analysis of Jesus’ mental state and they had arrived at the conclusion that he was spirit-possessed. Furthermore he added that the Greek verb ‘existemi’ that I had translated as ‘to be out of one’s mind’ is used elsewhere in the Gospels to simply express a sense of wonderment upon witnessing a miracle and it appears in other Gospel passages that are entirely devoid of any connotations of spirit possession. 

I then offered a second piece of evidence: how about Mark 13:11: ‘for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit’? Surely this is indisputable proof that Jesus and his disciples were spirit possessed? And what about the strange sound that Jesus emits during the resurrection of Lazarus in chapter eleven of the Gospel of John? Could this be evidence that a spirit was speaking through him? Leonard dismissed my line of reasoning and he said that magicians who sought to control spiritual powers would often make wild physical gestures and adopt strange voices (hence the close association between magic and madness in the ancient world) and alter-persona speech was closely linked to this kind of magical activity. 

Reaching up to a shelf above his chair, he fetched down his bible, flicked frantically through the pages and then presented me with a verse from the Book of Isaiah which describes the effect that a magically acquired spirit has upon the voice of a magician:

‘Then deep from the earth you shall speak,

from low in the dust your words shall come;

your voice shall be as one that has a familiar spirit out of the ground

and your speech shall whisper out of the dust.’

Leonard said that the translation of the Hebrew word ‘ob’ in this instance as ‘one that has a familiar spirit’ is a nod to the Latin familiaris (meaning ‘household servant’) and it is intended to convey the notion of an obedient spirit behaving like a servant to a magician. However he pointed out that the word ‘ob’ is more commonly translated as ‘skin-bottle’ and this popular translation refers to the practice of commanding a spiritual being to enter into the magician in a form of controlled possession whereby the magician’s body acts as the vessel for the incoming spirit. A possessing spirit would often distort the voice of the magician, hence in the classical period these magicians were known as ‘ventriloquists’ or ‘engastrimuthoi’ (‘belly-talkers’) in view of the deep guttural voices that appeared to come from within their stomachs. Leonard argued that since these spirits were believed to transform the speech of the magician, we cannot assume that a variation in speech is indicative of passive possession and, on the contrary, it may well signify that the individual is a magician who has acquired possession of a spirit.

Seeing that I was deflated by my failed attempts to defend my spirit-possession theory, Leonard became sympathetic to my argument for a moment and he even offered some of his own evidence to support my case. He agreed that the descent of the Holy Spirit as a dove during Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River is reminiscent of a possession experience, particularly since spiritual beings and the souls of the deceased are commonly depicted as birds in biblical, classical and modern literature. He also pointed out that the forceful nature of Jesus’ expulsion into the wilderness immediately following his baptism is typical of the impulsive behaviours that are associated with spirit possession. But just when I was beginning to be convinced by my own argument, Leonard laid waste to my theory of divine-possession and his counter evidence came thick and fast...

Apologies but I must log off the computer now - I have a mountain of revision to get through tonight and Alex is due home at any second. I promise that I will write more tomorrow…