excuses (‘I’m just off to borrow a cup of sugar’, ‘I’m just taking the dog for a walk’, ‘I’m popping round to the shops now’) in order to conceal her life-enhancing fucks with the neighbours. On the other hand, there is part of me which believes Cosmic. Certainly cancer is very mysterious. I have the superstitious feeling that one can contract cancer just by thinking about it – or writing about it. Enough.
Saturday, May 27
Over breakfast they quiz me. They worry about me. They worry about my long hair – or rather what the neighbours will say about it. They worry about Sally. They are sure that she is unsuitable and a bad influence and that I spend too much time with her. Inconsistently, they also worry that I may be lonely. Am I taking drugs? Am I eating enough? What about my studies? From Dad’s perspective, that of a research chemist, sociology is not a real science. I try to soothe them and bore them into silence. If they ever found out that I was in an organisation like the Black Book Lodge it would freak them out totally.
This business about Sally being a bad influence is a bit unfortunate. Last year she came up to Cambridge to stay a couple of nights (separate bedrooms of course). At first things went OK. Although Sally had her period, there is a glow about her at such times and she claims that my big problem is that I, like most men, have menstruation-envy. Anyway on the Saturday my parents announced that they were going to be out for most of the day, so Sally and I decided to trip. Sally had been getting me to read some of her Arthurian stuff, so the trip we shared was confusedly centred round the Grail Mysteries. Sally was the Moon Priestess of the Grail Castle which was located in the midst of the Wasteland, desolate under an enigmatic curse. I was the questing knight who, having penetrated the Castle, saw a procession of dancing youths and maidens (bearing a remarkable resemblance to Pan’s People) and this dance troupe whirled and jived around a lance which dripped blood and behind the bloody lance came the chalice of the Grail which was overflowing with blood. In order for the Wasteland to be renewed, the question had to be asked, ‘The cup that bleeds, what is it for?’ To attain Gnosis I had to become the ‘red man’ of the alchemists. Stuff like that. All well and good. Except that Sally and I were not then as used to LSD as we are now and we had slightly underestimated the length of time our trips would take. By the time my parents returned we were coming down all right, but we still were not one hundred percent straight. This meant that I had not removed all the blood from my face. Also I was talking very slowly and carefully, as I was checking myself all the time in case I let something psychedelically mad out. Ever since then Sally was marked down as a bad influence. Things were not helped by my parent’s mistaking a joss-stick for hashish.
Grail Mysteries Day in Cambridge just does not bear thinking about – any more than does the bloody day Cosmic came round to my pad with a bottle of whisky and a hand-drill. I do not like whisky, but Cosmic made me drink more than half the bottle before he explained what he had in mind. He had just met a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Gandalf’s Garden and this monk had explained to him, how one could enjoy a perpetual mystic high if only one had the resolution to let oneself be trepanned. Cosmic wanted me to drill a hole in the side of his head. If it all turned out to be as wonderful as the monk said it was, then he would do the same for me. Cosmic removed my glass of whisky and put the drill in my hand. The thing had a spike which I was to thrust resolutely into the side of his skull. The spike would hold the drill steady in the bone while a circle of saw-teeth went round and round until they had cut a neat little ring in the skull. This ring of bone I should be able to prise out with a penknife. Then oxygen would rush into Cosmic’s brain
Saturday, May 27
Over breakfast they quiz me. They worry about me. They worry about my long hair – or rather what the neighbours will say about it. They worry about Sally. They are sure that she is unsuitable and a bad influence and that I spend too much time with her. Inconsistently, they also worry that I may be lonely. Am I taking drugs? Am I eating enough? What about my studies? From Dad’s perspective, that of a research chemist, sociology is not a real science. I try to soothe them and bore them into silence. If they ever found out that I was in an organisation like the Black Book Lodge it would freak them out totally.
This business about Sally being a bad influence is a bit unfortunate. Last year she came up to Cambridge to stay a couple of nights (separate bedrooms of course). At first things went OK. Although Sally had her period, there is a glow about her at such times and she claims that my big problem is that I, like most men, have menstruation-envy. Anyway on the Saturday my parents announced that they were going to be out for most of the day, so Sally and I decided to trip. Sally had been getting me to read some of her Arthurian stuff, so the trip we shared was confusedly centred round the Grail Mysteries. Sally was the Moon Priestess of the Grail Castle which was located in the midst of the Wasteland, desolate under an enigmatic curse. I was the questing knight who, having penetrated the Castle, saw a procession of dancing youths and maidens (bearing a remarkable resemblance to Pan’s People) and this dance troupe whirled and jived around a lance which dripped blood and behind the bloody lance came the chalice of the Grail which was overflowing with blood. In order for the Wasteland to be renewed, the question had to be asked, ‘The cup that bleeds, what is it for?’ To attain Gnosis I had to become the ‘red man’ of the alchemists. Stuff like that. All well and good. Except that Sally and I were not then as used to LSD as we are now and we had slightly underestimated the length of time our trips would take. By the time my parents returned we were coming down all right, but we still were not one hundred percent straight. This meant that I had not removed all the blood from my face. Also I was talking very slowly and carefully, as I was checking myself all the time in case I let something psychedelically mad out. Ever since then Sally was marked down as a bad influence. Things were not helped by my parent’s mistaking a joss-stick for hashish.
Grail Mysteries Day in Cambridge just does not bear thinking about – any more than does the bloody day Cosmic came round to my pad with a bottle of whisky and a hand-drill. I do not like whisky, but Cosmic made me drink more than half the bottle before he explained what he had in mind. He had just met a Tibetan Buddhist monk in Gandalf’s Garden and this monk had explained to him, how one could enjoy a perpetual mystic high if only one had the resolution to let oneself be trepanned. Cosmic wanted me to drill a hole in the side of his head. If it all turned out to be as wonderful as the monk said it was, then he would do the same for me. Cosmic removed my glass of whisky and put the drill in my hand. The thing had a spike which I was to thrust resolutely into the side of his skull. The spike would hold the drill steady in the bone while a circle of saw-teeth went round and round until they had cut a neat little ring in the skull. This ring of bone I should be able to prise out with a penknife. Then oxygen would rush into Cosmic’s brain
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