The Book of Skulls

chapter thirty-one Eli

The meditation, I’m convinced, is the core of the process. Being able to turn inward. You absolutely have to do that if you hope to accomplish anything her; The rest — the gymnastics, the diet, the baths, the field-labor — all that is just a series of techniques for achieving self-discipline, for lifting the balky ego toward the degree of control on which real longevity depends. Of course, if you want to live a long time it helps to get plenty of exercise, keep your body in trim, avoid unhealthy foods, etc., etc. But I think it’s a mistake to place much emphasis on those aspects of the Brotherhood’s routine. Hygiene and gymnastics may be useful in extending the average lifespan to eighty or eighty-five, but something more transcendental is required if you want to live to eight hundred or eight hundred and fifty. (Or eighty-five hundred? Eighty-five thousand?) Complete control of bodily function is needed. And meditation’s the key.

At this stage they’re stressing the development of inner awareness. We’re supposed to stare at the setting sun, say, and convey its heat and power to different parts of our bodies — the heart, first, then the testicles, the lungs, the spleen, and so forth. I maintain that it isn’t the solar radiance they’re interested in — that part is just metaphor, just symbol — but rather the idea of putting us in contact with heart, testicles, lungs, spleen, etc., so that in case of problems in those organs we can go to them with our minds and fix whatever has to be fixed. This whole business of skulls, around which so much of the Meditation revolves: more metaphor, which I’m sure is intended solely to give us a convenient focus of attention. So that we can pick up off the image of the skull and use it as a springboard for the inward leap. Any other symbol would have worked just as well, probably — a sunflower, a cluster of acorns, a four-leaf clover. Once invested with the proper psychic clout, the mana, anything could serve. The Brotherhood just happened to fasten on the symbology of skulls. Which was quite good enough, really; there’s mystery in a skull, there’s romance, there’s wonder. So we sit and stare at Frater Antony’s little jade skull-pendant, and we’re told to perform various metaphorical absorptions and engulfments having to do with the relation of death to life, but what they really want us to do is learn how to focus all our mental energy on a single object. Having mastered concentration, we can apply our new skill to the tasks of perpetual self-repair. That’s the whole secret. Longevity drugs, health foods, sunshine cults, prayer, and such things are peripheral; meditation is all. It’s a kind of yoga, I guess — mind over matter — although, if the Brotherhood is as ancient as Frater Miklos implies, perhaps it’s more accurate to say that yoga is an offshoot of the skull-house.

We have a long way to go. These are still the preliminary stages of the series of training routines that the Brothers term the Trial. What lies ahead, I suspect, is largely psychological or even psychoanalytic: a purging of excess baggage from the soul. The ugly business of the Ninth Mystery is part of that. I still don’t know whether to interpret that passage of the Book of Skulls literally or metaphorically, but in either event I’m sure it deals with the banishing of bad vibes from the Receptacle; we kill one scapegoat, actually or otherwise, and the other scapegoat removes himself, actually or otherwise, and the net effect of this is to leave two fledgling fraters who are without the jangling death-jitters bome by the defective duo. Besides purging the group as a whole, we must purge our individual inner selves. Last night after dinner Frater Javier visited me in my room, and I assume visited each of the others; he told me that I must prepare myself for the confessional rites. I was asked to review my entire life, giving special attention to episodes of guilt and shame, and to be ready to discuss those episodes in depth when asked to do so. I suppose some kind of primordial encounter group will be organized shortly, with Frater Javier in charge. A formidable man, that one. Gray eyes, thin lips, chiseled face. As accessible as a slab of granite. When he moves through the halls I imagine that I hear an accompaniment of dark groaning music. Enter the Grand Inquisitor! Yes. Frater Javier: the Grand Inquisitor. Night and chill; fog and pain. When begins the Inquisition? What shall I say? Which of my guilts shall I place on the altar, which of my shames?

I gather that the purpose of this unburdening will be to simplify our souls through a yielding up of — what term shall I use? — neuroses, sins, mental blocks, hangups, en-grams, deposits of bad karma? We must pare ourselves down, pare ourselves down. Bone and flesh, these we retain, but the spirit must be whittled. We must strive toward a kind of quietism, in which there are no conflicts, in which there is no stress. Avoid everything that goes against the grain, and, if necessary, redirect the grain. Effortless action, that’s the key. No energy rip-offs allowed; struggles shorten lives. Well, we’ll see. I’m carrying plenty of inner dross, and so are we all. A psychic enema might not be such a bad thing.

What shall I tell you, Frater Javier?