Victor Pelevin - The Sacred Book of the Werewolf

‘Yes, I would,’ Alexander muttered.

‘Then forget all this nonsense, and let’s get down to business. Today I’m going to tell you about what lies concealed behind the ability of certain people to transform themselves into animals - an ability that is real, not metaphorical. Anthy, is everything working? Then turn off the light, please . . .’

‘What you are about to hear,’ said Lord Cricket, ‘is normally regarded as esoteric knowledge. Therefore I ask you to keep what you hear secret. The information I intend to share with you originates from the Pink Sunset Lodge, or, more precisely, from Aleister Crowley, Aldous Huxley and their line of secret transmission. The condition of secrecy that I have mentioned is essential, not so much for the sake of the lodge, as for your own personal safety. Do you accept this condition?’

Alexander and I exchanged glances.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ Alexander repeated, after a brief pause.

Lord Cricket touched one of the keys on his laptop. A diagram appeared on the wall - a man sitting in the lotus position, with a vertical line drawn along his spine. Set along this line were symbols marked with Sanskrit characters, looking like different-coloured cogwheels with various numbers of teeth.

‘No doubt you are aware that a human being is not merely a physical body with a nervous system, restricted to the perception of the physical world. On the subtle plane a human being is a psycho-energetic structure consisting of three channels of energy and seven psychic centres called chakras.’

Lord Cricket ran his finger down something rather like a bicycle chain connecting the cogwheels on the spine.

‘This subtle structure not only regulates a human being’s spiritual life. It is also responsible for the way in which he or she perceives the surrounding world. Each chakra is related to a specific set of psychic manifestations, which I won’t go into just now. What is important for us is that, according to the traditional occult view, spiritual progress consists in the ascent along the central energy channel of a force known as “kundalini”, or “snake energy”.’

A part of the previous diagram appeared on the screen, showing an inverted triangle at the very base of the spine.

‘In its coiled state, Kundalini slumbers in this triangular bone called the “sacrum”. The sacrum is located at the base of the spine - in fact, it is its first bone. Or its last, depending on your point of view. In traditional occultism it is believed that the gradual charging of the chakras with the kundalini force is the essential aspect of the journey from a philistine who is indifferent to spiritual matters, to a saint who has achieved unity with the godhead . . .’

Lord Cricket paused for effect.

‘In most occult schools it was usually assumed that kundalini can only rise upwards through the central channel. Nowhere in any openly available sources do we find any mention of the snake energy being able to move downwards. Nonetheless, it is possible for the energy to move in this manner.’

The following diagram was like the first, except that the vertical line continued below the seated man’s crossed legs and three new cogwheels, all black, had appeared on it. There were no Sanskrit characters beside them - only numerals. The one closest to the man’s body was marked ‘1’, the next was marked ‘2’, and the one furthest away was marked ‘3’.

‘I’m not going to talk about how the kundalini can be made to move downwards. That requires a degree of initiation that no one present here today possesses . . .’

‘Oh, Brian,’ E Hu-Li interrupted, ‘really, what are you saying. Tell them.’

‘Anthy,’ said Lord Cricket, ‘everything that can be said, will be said. And so, as a result of a certain procedure, the kundalini surges down along the shadow projection of the central channel. When this occurs, it can halt at three points, which are mirror reflections of the three lower chakras - muladhara, swadhishtana and manipura .’

He drew his finger down through the three black cogwheels. I noticed number one had four petals, which made it look like the blades in a kitchen mincer. Number two had six petals, and it looked like a martial arts weapon for throwing. And number three consisted of two stars, one superimposed on the other, each with five projections, folded over slightly - ten petals in all.

‘As I have already said, the movement of kundalini upwards along the central channel leads to unity with the godhead and likeness to god. It is logical to assume that the result of the snake force moving downwards must be the direct opposite. And at this point, I would like to draw your attention to a certain extremely interesting circumstance, of which I was reminded by our enchanting guest, when she spoke about the meaning of words in different languages . . .’

Lord Cricket bowed briefly in my direction and smiled. I smiled in reply and whispered to Alexander:

‘Learn some manners, you oaf.’

‘We heard about the Russian word “Bog” and its English equivalent “God”. If you read “God” backwards, you get “Dog”. You must understand that this coincidence is not simply an accident. It is possible to argue which came first - the language or the reality that it reflects. But that is merely the old chestnut about the chicken and the egg.’

The silhouettes of three animals appeared on the screen - a wolf, a dog and a fox.

‘The word “werewolf” means a human being who can assume the form of a wolf, or perhaps some other animal. In Chinese, however, the corresponding term is associated more closely with foxes. But there is no fundamental contradiction in this - the fox, like the wolf, is a member of the class of canines. They are still “God” spelt backwards, still the same highly charged black mass, the same downwards shift of kundalini.’

‘A highly charged black mass,’ E Hu-Li repeated in a low voice, giving her husband a respectful look.

‘The question that arises is how the kundalini travels once it leaves the body. After all, it can’t actually move through empty space. And here we reach the most interesting part. Again, it is possible to argue at length about what is the cause and what is the effect, but the emergence of kundalini from the body is accompanied by a physical mutation. Something quite incredible takes place. Do you remember those films about volcanic eruptions? Sometimes there are scenes in them where you can see lava flowing down a slope and burning out a channel that was-n’t there a moment earlier. The kundalini creates a physical channel for itself in exactly the same way. As soon as it moves below the muladhara - the lowest human chakra, located at the base of the spine - the were-creature starts to grow a tail!’

Two tails - a wolf’s and a fox’s - appeared on the screen. The fox’s tail was drawn with absurd mistakes. The next slide showed the man in the lotus position again, but now he had a shaggy tail, with three black cogwheels on it.

‘It is through the tail that the kundalini energy descends into the three lower infra-chakras. These centres do not have any Sanskrit names. They are conventionally referred to as “the position of the fox”, “the position of the wolf” and “the abyss”. The infra-chakra closest to the body is the position of the fox.’

He pointed to the black blades from the kitchen mincer, with the number ‘1’ beside them.

‘This is considered to be a point of stable equilibrium, where the energy can be located permanently, and so the were-creature can remain in the form of a fox for an unlimited period of time. However, you should not think that at this point transformation occurs into a fox that is the animal we know. The snake energy emerges only a short distance from the body, and therefore in physical terms the were-creature differs only in insignificant ways from a human being. It is simply a rather plain creature with a tail and a few changes in the shape of the ears . . .’