I’m presently reading a book called Dreaming the Future by one of my most favorite writers, Clifford Pickover. In this book he drums up some ancient symbol codes, one of runes and another of Enochian characters, which he invites the reader to crack. He casually quips that no one has yet been able to break the secret Enochian code.
Interestingly enough, somebody who checked the book out of the library before me was able to crack it. Scratched in pencil above the odd feathery language (which was used in the 17th century by John Dee, a famous scientist, mathematician, astrologer, and divination extraordinaire, to commune with the angels) was the decoded message:
This is a secret code in the Enochian language. I hope you like it and enjoy reading these words. My name is Cliff Pickover. I wish you a productive and pleasant day.
I don’t know exactly why, but this is very exciting, and perhaps a touch foreboding, to me. Who had this book? Who deciphered the code? Is Pickover joking and it’s really not that hard to decipher? Was it a fluke? Or is it possible that some spiritual being checked this book out before me and filled in the informative and encouraging message from the author? I’ll never know.
I’ve always been drawn to the occult. As a youngster I loved nothing better than a sleepover and a midnight round of “Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board” during which someone would hypnotize a volunteer by rubbing her temples (don’t ask me, we just made it up) and invite the ghasts from the cemetery to come round and help us lift her spirit stiffened and lightened body into the air with just two fingers. Shivers run down my spine now, just as invigoratingly as they did twenty years ago, upon remembering our successes.
Then there was the Ouija board. Oh come on, you know you had you some serious Ouija experience. Admit it. My BFFs and I called forth the spirit of a little boy with the initials of something or other (can’t remember) who was killed in a car crash with his parents…(shudder). And there was the great phone-ringing-with-nobody-on-the-line experience of 92′ to think about.
All this is a long segue into divination thinkings. Up next: John Dee (briefly mentioned above), necromancer. (It’s not as bad as it sounds. It just means communing with dead people.)