Susan Howatch - Mystical Paths

COVER

TITLE PAGE Susan Howatch MYSTICAL PATHS

COPYRIGHT

PRAISE

AUTHOR’S NOTE

PART ONE THE JOURNEY AROUND THE CIRCLE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

PART TWO THE JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

PART THREE SELF-REALISATION/ETERNAL LIFE

ONE

TWO

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BY SUSAN HOWATCH

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

‘Amidst the pressures and strains of life there is the longing of the self to realize itself by escaping from the dominance of the environment. There are many cults which offer such an escape, with an experience of a heightening of the faculties and a realization of the self in greater power of its own or of something beyond the self. But it is important to ask what is the reality which is experienced, and what is the effect not only upon the sensations but upon the life and character of the person who has had the experience. There is an old story of a man who was had up for being drunk. The magistrate asked, “Why do you get drunk like this?” and the man replied, “You see, your worship, it’s the shortest way out of Manchester.” Alcohol, drugs, the mystical techniques of various religions, may be the shortest way out of Manchester … But it matters very much where you get to, and what you are like when you come back.’

MICHAEL RAMSEY

Archbishop of Canterbury 1961–1974

Canterbury Pilgrim

‘God acts upon us inescapably through the people who touch and influence our lives.’

CHRISTOPHER BRYANT

Member of the Society of St John the Evangelist 1935–1985

The River Within

‘More than in the past, the young are striking out into intellectual independence and revolt against tradition.’

MICHAEL RAMSEY

Archbishop of Canterbury 1961–1974

Canterbury Pilgrim

I had just returned from an exorcism and was flinging some shirts into the washing machine when my colleague entered the kitchen. He was wearing his cassock and carrying a bottle of whisky. Beyond the window caked in city grime, sunlight blazed upon the battered dustbins in the back-yard.

‘How was the Gothic mansion haunted by the ravishing young ghost?’

‘Non-existent. The trouble was in a council house where the previous occupant had overdosed on heroin in the lavatory.’

‘Ah well, that’s 1988 for you … Drink?’

I declined but passed him a glass from the draining-board rack before I set the dials on the washing-machine. Meanwhile the electric kettle was coming to the boil. Absent-mindedly I reached for the teapot. ‘What’s new?’

‘Absolutely nothing. A drunk disrupted the lunch-time Eucharist, the Gay Christians demanded that we stock their literature on AIDS, and some neurotic female from the Movement for the Ordination of Women threatened to picket the church unless you sacked me – oh, and talking of neurotic women someone called Venetia telephoned twice to say she had to talk to you. She sounded like a nymphomaniac.’ He drank deeply from his whisky before adding: ‘Now why should the name Venetia remind me of the 1960s?’

There was a silence broken only by the click of the kettle as it switched itself off. Then I said: ‘She was a friend of Christian Aysgarth’s.’

‘Ah yes,’ said my colleague, suddenly motionless. ‘The Christian Aysgarth affair. 1968. Crisis, chaos and the Devil on the loose.’

The phone rang. Moving to the extension, which hung on the wall by the dresser, I unhooked the receiver and said neutrally: ‘St Bent’s Rectory.’

‘Darling!’ It was Venetia. ‘I thought I’d never get past that crusty old curate you keep!’

‘He’s not my curate. He’s my colleague at the Healing Centre.’

‘Well, chain him up somewhere, I can’t bear misogynists. Now darling, I know you were terribly sweet and madly keen that I should visit you for a little professional chat, but –’

‘– you’ve got cold feet.’

‘Slightly shivery, yes. When I awoke this morning I began to wonder if a Healing Centre was really quite my scene, and –’

‘Nobody’s asking you to fall in love with it. Just think of it as a back-drop. I’m the scene.’

‘Oh yes, lovely, simply too thrilling – but I can’t bear that word “counselling” – quite ruined by the 1980s – all those wild-eyed social workers descending like vultures on disaster-victims –’

‘I’m neither wild-eyed, nor a social worker, nor a vulture, and I’m not going to counsel. I’m going to listen.’

‘Oh, but I shall make a mess of talking – I make a mess of everything – I shall wind up totally speechless –’

‘Fine. Then we can sit in silence and soak up the vibes.’

‘Soak up the vibes! Oh Nick, how that phrase takes me back! Do you know it’s twenty years now – twenty years – since you came to see me about Christian? That mysterious quest of yours! You never did tell me the whole story, did you?’

‘“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.”’

‘No, don’t try and wriggle off the hook by quoting Wittgenstein! Look, let’s forget my visit to the Healing Centre – come and dine with me instead and tell me exactly what happened in 1968. I always found that official version curiously unsatisfactory.’

I realised it was time to take a firm line. ‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘but I don’t dine out during the week and I’ve no intention of forgetting your promise to visit the Healing Centre. I’ll see you on Thursday at eleven as we arranged yesterday in Starbridge.’

‘My dear, how masterful! Why is it I always find you so utterly impossible to resist?’ said Venetia crossly, and hung up.

Turning my back on the phone I found that my colleague had made the tea for me. ‘That’s the only woman I’ve ever met,’ I said, sitting down opposite him at the kitchen table, ‘who can recognise a quotation from Wittgenstein.’

‘She sounds extremely dangerous. Do be careful, Nicholas.’

I smiled at him. Then I drank my tea, stared into space and mentally turned back the clock to 1968, that demonic year when I had become so obsessed by Christian Aysgarth.

For most of 1968 I was twenty-five; my twenty-sixth birthday fell on Christmas Eve. Buried in that first quarter-century of my life were the time-bombs which exploded in 1968 – or perhaps it would be more accurate, though less colourful, to write: weaving through those first twenty-five years were the paths which eventually converged to lead me into the Christian Aysgarth mystery. The first path followed my convoluted relationship with my father. The second path followed my disastrous career as a psychic. And the third path followed my friendship with Marina Markhampton. By 1968 all three paths were running side by side – in fact they had become a three-lane motorway where the words ‘TO HELL’ came up on all the signboards – but in the beginning hell was a long way off and Path Number One led through the idyllic landscape of my childhood.

I was brought up in the country near the city of Starbridge where my father worked at the Theological College in the Cathedral Close. When I was still in the nursery he had been appointed Principal, but he had not been required to live on the premises and I can remember watching him ride off on his bicycle to the station where he would take the train to Starbridge, twelve miles away. If the weather was wet my mother insisted on giving him a lift in the Rolls, but he preferred to be independent. Born in the last century he had never learnt to drive and he regarded travelling by Rolls-Royce as an inexcusable luxury for a priest. But then he became busier as the College Principal; soon the inexcusable luxury transformed itself into a time-saving necessity, and he stopped talking about the corrupting influence of the motor car.