TANATA:

A NEW NOVEL
by Randall Carter Gray

CHAPTER ONE:
The Mystic’s Notebook

Discrediting God, the God of Israel, portraying him as all the things he is not, so that man will reject him in advance of mankind’s redemption, appears to be the strategy. And evil has been very effective, on many fronts. Even now it stands behind me like a cloak about to be draped over my shoulders. The apparent world seemingly behind me and only slightly to the front is visible to me only by way of my peripheral vision, mostly to the left, although I am aware of movement and a presence to the left and the right. But I favor the vision out of my left eye, my left side.

Am I going mad? Would the God I serve allow me to go mad? Or is there a purpose to what only seems to be madness? Is what I am experiencing actually occurring in real time? If it is, there is something very curious afoot. Of course, if you were to ask any number of people, some of my family members included, they would tell you that I am indeed mentally ill — but I would counter, not in this way. I wonder about this phenomenon nightly as I write in the glow of my computer monitor in an otherwise darkened study off of my bedroom, where my wife is typically sleeping. The glow of the monitor screen gives me the best and most aware view of these assorted individuals, this “crowd” of … witnesses … behind me. It is a gray world, with shades of gray to black, translucent, but not completely so that I should not sense that they are beings of substance. It is not the appearance of a ghost or ghosts I’m seeing, I don’t believe, but rather a black and white picture, with movement, being projected somehow. But, of course, to turn and look directly at where I am seeing these things … there is nothing there. It doesn’t bother me, as I’ve gotten used to it. But I would like to know the answer definitively to the question which began this paragraph. And if I am not mad, what am I seeing? Perhaps I’m experiencing the onset of some occular malady, such as glaucoma.

However, this is not the only “psychic” phenomenon with which I must contend these days. There are more diaphanous figures outside and the sensation of seeing light falling as snow, and the air is displaced as it is when we see a hot surface in the summertime at a distance. And when I become aware of it outdoors, and indoors, there is a thin, wispy cloud which hovers and swirls slowly around me.

It seems to me that what is behind me when I write, where the players change, and there is often a great deal of movement, people communicating, gesturing as they speak — but I can’t hear them — is Purgatory. A colorless, drab place, a mournful place, I feel. There are talented people there; famous people there, proud people there, intelligent rejectors of God — and they’re all in the same boat. A dingy gray boat in a frozen gray sea, trapped and not going anywhere.

It must be cold where they are, and very discouraging, I should think, particularly if they should see loved ones from the side they’re apparently on and miss desperately making contact with them, holding them, loving them so that they will feel loved, to dry their tears. I don’t believe the overtly, despicably evil are here; but those on the cusp. Those who did not make their decisions to run to the light in life, when they might have, to embrace Jesus, as the only Everyman who ever lived, are trapped where they are perhaps to decide between staying where they are or taking what is behind door number two. And goodness knows, if evil has access to you in such a setting as this, making a person very much a captive audience, one would think it would be very difficult to hold off their overtures of persuasion. Cold is not altogether unpleasant to me; nor is a gray and cloudy day undesirable — frankly I prefer overcast days to brightly sunny ones. But it would be dreadful to ever be in such a place forever.

The sun hurts my eyes; and for this reason I am a night person. Cold, their floors must be, with walls of ice, perhaps not cold to the touch; perhaps all senses have been removed. I don’t imagine that ice is what we’ll find in the second Eden. Not unless there will be iced tea, sweet tea, as we call it in the South; I do hope so.

So what was my friend Mr. Coleridge envisioning — Eden or hell, when he describes the caves of ice, and chasms, brilliant, though foreboding — like the color drained from the landscape in Yellow Submarine, it occurs to me, though I don’t know why. Except these are Red Meanies. Color or no, who would not be impressed by the sparkling ice and the Pleasure Dome? I get the impression that there are people behind me who have not yet died, who are very impressed. And that’s too bad … because there must be more, there must be a lot more than this life. I must make a note to reread Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, because it is my favorite poem, for some reason, and I believe it holds more information than it has already revealed.

Being so easily impressed with Purgatory, of course, will be their undoing. Finding meaning in what they can see, as opposed to the depth of meaning which can be theirs by reading the teachings of Jesus — discovering that they work — presents them and me with a very discomforting circumstance, a situation with which the most powerful on earth will have to wrestle; they will have to choose between the teachings of an invisible God, which evil can prove it has tampered with and defeated, the Holy Scriptures, that is, both the Hebrew scriptures or the Tanakh and the Christian New Testament, and on the other hand there will be bells and whistles, but only these, physically accessible so that may might be witnessed. Entrance is made perhaps by some Stargate, or some underwater or underground space, a fissure in the rock, or an elaborate pressure controlled transport room.

The bells and whistles involved with transcending time and space, and light would impress me and cause me that I might be in God’s presence — although ultimately, there couldn’t possibly ever be a transcending of light or The light. As Jesus was shown all that was visible, all that he could have, all over which he could rule, he was perhaps shown these things from the perspective of Purgatory/hell, too … only in a cleaned up form, of course. I can imagine the floor waxers out en masse. Unless the floors are made of ice.

Either these things are actually happening, or my mind has been playing tricks on me, for two years, three years? … and none of this is real, but signs of a deteriorating brain due to injury and pre-existing deposal to schizophrenia, from my mother’s side. Her mother. Was it two years ago, this theophany, which it clearly was; It seems reasonable to assume that these other psychic phenomena have coincided with the cloud which appeared over my house in the late spring or summer of 2006, just past midnight, about one thirty a.m. I have not detected, and did not at the time detect, that there was some connection between the cloud and the appearance of all of my new very diaphanous friends. Indoors and outdoors. I like the word diaphanous; I don’t know why, perhaps because it’s a word that reminds me of see-through clothing, or it is just fun to say, and hard to spell, although I suspect the former; it looks smashing on some people, beautiful young women, and then there would be the people like me … well, why entertain such a thing? What matters is what shall begin to happen in the days and weeks to come. Possibly when these of Purgatory will be allowed somewhat to return, to evangelize, to exercise their second chances.

I’m quite confident that this will be the doozy of a hurricane season which all the experts said we were to have gotten two or three summers ago, after Katrina. Amazing that storm. And amazing the response. It seemed to me that there were people standing right next to some railroad tracks when a train was barreling toward some deaf people who couldn’t hear the train. And the people standing over by the tracks … never said a word.

The undead guests who enter Purgatory from the outside will find the place impressive enough. And, perhaps, many still-leaving people already have. If this is what they choose — they will be selling God short, and it is this which I believe I must convey, for their good … and mine. I don’t believe Purgatory is very much different than hell, only in degrees. And temperature? It could be worse, much worse — hell that is. Though so few of us alive on earth wish to give it any thought. We are either angry at God, and can’t imagine that he would meet their anger with anger, which I do not believe he does; or they love God, they may assume, and cannot imagine a loving God introducing them to hell in a timeless state. But, of course, God sends no one to hell, he overtly does nothing destructive or negative, I’m convinced. Therefore, the Bible, much of it, in my judgment, has been altered, heavily written and redacted so that evil might prove otherwise, so that evil might portray God as one of them, the Demiurge, who kills and makes alive. But this is nonsense, for reasons I will explain along the way. So, the Bible is full of lies … but there is enough artistry and truth to win the day.

What errors then? For one, I don’t believe that God told Joshua to enter Canaan and slay all that he and the Israelites would have found in the way of residents. There is not evidence, in fact, that Joshua engaged in any such campaigns.

If these are lies … how many more lies are there in the Bible — not errors … but lies? What is true, as I have been privileged, or, rather, forced to entertain, is what I must convey. Indeed, in the end, it may be pure reason and evidence rhetorically presented that will make the difference in the life or lives of the souls behind me. Because God is not a God of bells and whistles. He’s precise; he’s reserved; he waits until the fullness of time to do anything — and then I believe it happens quite swiftly, including alterations in the earth. We shall see. And yet, I do not believe that God will crack open the earth, because of what will follow, but rather he will allow evil to do it.

I have sensed men most in this place, who are interested in what I write from the perspective of another writer or an artist of some kind. And, as I detect that they approve of my work, all forms of it, I detect that they need my help more than anything. And encouragement. No doubt, all of the sufferers like will have to be moved away from the location, this location, on those occasions when the still living and evil are being given an impressive enough tour, I should think; having the ability to become invisible, or, rather, being given that ability, as they would, to function in a parallel world, would be an overwhelming, sensual experience. But it is only quantum mechanics. Time and matter and space can be transcended. It has been; it yet is being transcended for nefarious purposes, I am convinced. All that Purgatory could really offer someone of a Godly nature would be the stealth, invisibility, except in my case, for I can see them, but in very limited ways.To deceivers, those of great arrogance, to spy on the lesser creatures of earth as they go about their daily tasks, which would include making love, such peeking in would appeal to them. But if God is truth, if he is good, if he values love and love-making, he would not arrange for such a thing as Purgatory. He has only allowed it to be formed because free will reigns, so that love may ultimately reign. Freedom is everything … but it is a two-edge sword, is it not?

I see them when I’m looking for them, but only out of the corners of my eyes. But I do have some forward vision at an angle to both the left and right. Though I’m focused and concentrating on my work, this is when I become most aware of them, peripherally; in a realm one step over, so to speak, a slight shift away, a tiny racheting to the next slot — so that we occupy, in effect, the same space. They can walk right through me, but not because they can transcend matter, perhaps, but because they live in a static alteration of time and light and space.

… continued in Parcourez (“Browse”) to the right.

Return to Magdala
by Randall Carter Gray

CHAPTER ONE: The Mystic’s Notebook

Discrediting God, the God of Israel, portraying him as all the things he is not, so that man will reject him in advance of mankind’s redemption, appears to be the strategy. And evil has been very effective, on many fronts. Even now it stands behind me like a cloak about to be draped over my shoulders. The apparent world seemingly behind me and only slightly to the front is visible to me only by way of my peripheral vision, mostly to the left, although I am aware of movement and a presence to the left and the right. But I favor the vision out of my left eye, my left side.

Am I going mad? Would the God I serve allow me to go mad? Or is there a purpose to what only seems to be madness? Is what I am experiencing actually occurring in real time? If it is, there is something very curious afoot. Of course, if you were to ask any number of people, some of my family members included, they would tell you that I am indeed mentally ill — but I would counter, not in this way. I wonder about this phenomenon nightly as I write in the glow of my computer monitor in an otherwise darkened study off of my bedroom, where my wife is typically sleeping. The glow of the monitor screen gives me the best and most aware view of these assorted individuals, this “crowd” of … witnesses … behind me. It is a gray world, with shades of gray to black, translucent, but not completely so that I should not sense that they are beings of substance. It is not the appearance of a ghost or ghosts I’m seeing, I don’t believe, but rather a black and white picture, with movement, being projected somehow. But, of course, to turn and look directly at where I am seeing these things … there is nothing there. It doesn’t bother me, as I’ve gotten used to it. But I would like to know the answer definitively to the question which began this paragraph. And if I am not mad, what am I seeing? Perhaps I’m experiencing the onset of some occular malady, such as glaucoma.

However, this is not the only “psychic” phenomenon with which I must contend these days. There are more diaphanous figures outside and the sensation of seeing light falling as snow, and the air is displaced as it is when we see a hot surface in the summertime at a distance. And when I become aware of it outdoors, and indoors, there is a thin, wispy cloud which hovers and swirls slowly around me.

It seems to me that what is behind me when I write, where the players change, and there is often a great deal of movement, people communicating, gesturing as they speak — but I can’t hear them — is Purgatory. A colorless, drab place, a mournful place, I feel. There are talented people there; famous people there, proud people there, intelligent rejectors of God — and they’re all in the same boat. A dingy gray boat in a frozen gray sea, trapped and not going anywhere.

It must be cold where they are, and very discouraging, I should think, particularly if they should see loved ones from the side they’re apparently on and miss desperately making contact with them, holding them, loving them so that they will feel loved, to dry their tears. I don’t believe the overtly, despicably evil are here; but those on the cusp. Those who did not make their decisions to run to the light in life, when they might have, to embrace Jesus, as the only Everyman who ever lived, are trapped where they are perhaps to decide between staying where they are or taking what is behind door number two. And goodness knows, if evil has access to you in such a setting as this, making a person very much a captive audience, one would think it would be very difficult to hold off their overtures of persuasion. Cold is not altogether unpleasant to me; nor is a gray and cloudy day undesirable — frankly I prefer overcast days to brightly sunny ones. But it would be dreadful to ever be in such a place forever.

The sun hurts my eyes; and for this reason I am a night person. Cold, their floors must be, with walls of ice, perhaps not cold to the touch; perhaps all senses have been removed. I don’t imagine that ice is what we’ll find in the second Eden. Not unless there will be iced tea, sweet tea, as we call it in the South; I do hope so.

So what was my friend Mr. Coleridge envisioning — Eden or hell, when he describes the caves of ice, and chasms, brilliant, though foreboding — like the color drained from the landscape in Yellow Submarine, it occurs to me, though I don’t know why. Except these are Red Meanies. Color or no, who would not be impressed by the sparkling ice and the Pleasure Dome? I get the impression that there are people behind me who have not yet died, who are very impressed. And that’s too bad … because there must be more, there must be a lot more than this life. I must make a note to reread Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, because it is my favorite poem, for some reason, and I believe it holds more information than it has already revealed.

Being so easily impressed with Purgatory, of course, will be their undoing. Finding meaning in what they can see, as opposed to the depth of meaning which can be theirs by reading the teachings of Jesus — discovering that they work — presents them and me with a very discomforting circumstance, a situation with which the most powerful on earth will have to wrestle; they will have to choose between the teachings of an invisible God, which evil can prove it has tampered with and defeated, the Holy Scriptures, that is, both the Hebrew scriptures or the Tanakh and the Christian New Testament, and on the other hand there will be bells and whistles, but only these, physically accessible so that may might be witnessed. Entrance is made perhaps by some Stargate, or some underwater or underground space, a fissure in the rock, or an elaborate pressure controlled transport room.

The bells and whistles involved with transcending time and space, and light would impress me and cause me that I might be in God’s presence — although ultimately, there couldn’t possibly ever be a transcending of light or The light. As Jesus was shown all that was visible, all that he could have, all over which he could rule, he was perhaps shown these things from the perspective of Purgatory/hell, too … only in a cleaned up form, of course. I can imagine the floor waxers out en masse. Unless the floors are made of ice.

Either these things are actually happening, or my mind has been playing tricks on me, for two years, three years? … and none of this is real, but signs of a deteriorating brain due to injury and pre-existing deposal to schizophrenia, from my mother’s side. Her mother. Was it two years ago, this theophany, which it clearly was; It seems reasonable to assume that these other psychic phenomena have coincided with the cloud which appeared over my house in the late spring or summer of 2006, just past midnight, about one thirty a.m. I have not detected, and did not at the time detect, that there was some connection between the cloud and the appearance of all of my new very diaphanous friends. Indoors and outdoors. I like the word diaphanous; I don’t know why, perhaps because it’s a word that reminds me of see-through clothing, or it is just fun to say, and hard to spell, although I suspect the former; it looks smashing on some people, beautiful young women, and then there would be the people like me … well, why entertain such a thing? What matters is what shall begin to happen in the days and weeks to come. Possibly when these of Purgatory will be allowed somewhat to return, to evangelize, to exercise their second chances.

I’m quite confident that this will be the doozy of a hurricane season which all the experts said we were to have gotten two or three summers ago, after Katrina. Amazing that storm. And amazing the response. It seemed to me that there were people standing right next to some railroad tracks when a train was barreling toward some deaf people who couldn’t hear the train. And the people standing over by the tracks … never said a word.

The undead guests who enter Purgatory from the outside will find the place impressive enough. And, perhaps, many still-leaving people already have. If this is what they choose — they will be selling God short, and it is this which I believe I must convey, for their good … and mine. I don’t believe Purgatory is very much different than hell, only in degrees. And temperature? It could be worse, much worse — hell that is. Though so few of us alive on earth wish to give it any thought. We are either angry at God, and can’t imagine that he would meet their anger with anger, which I do not believe he does; or they love God, they may assume, and cannot imagine a loving God introducing them to hell in a timeless state. But, of course, God sends no one to hell, he overtly does nothing destructive or negative, I’m convinced. Therefore, the Bible, much of it, in my judgment, has been altered, heavily written and redacted so that evil might prove otherwise, so that evil might portray God as one of them, the Demiurge, who kills and makes alive. But this is nonsense, for reasons I will explain along the way. So, the Bible is full of lies … but there is enough artistry and truth to win the day.

What errors then? For one, I don’t believe that God told Joshua to enter Canaan and slay all that he and the Israelites would have found in the way of residents. There is not evidence, in fact, that Joshua engaged in any such campaigns.

If these are lies … how many more lies are there in the Bible — not errors … but lies? What is true, as I have been privileged, or, rather, forced to entertain, is what I must convey. Indeed, in the end, it may be pure reason and evidence rhetorically presented that will make the difference in the life or lives of the souls behind me. Because God is not a God of bells and whistles. He’s precise; he’s reserved; he waits until the fullness of time to do anything — and then I believe it happens quite swiftly, including alterations in the earth. We shall see. And yet, I do not believe that God will crack open the earth, because of what will follow, but rather he will allow evil to do it.

I have sensed men most in this place, who are interested in what I write from the perspective of another writer or an artist of some kind. And, as I detect that they approve of my work, all forms of it, I detect that they need my help more than anything. And encouragement. No doubt, all of the sufferers like will have to be moved away from the location, this location, on those occasions when the still living and evil are being given an impressive enough tour, I should think; having the ability to become invisible, or, rather, being given that ability, as they would, to function in a parallel world, would be an overwhelming, sensual experience. But it is only quantum mechanics. Time and matter and space can be transcended. It has been; it yet is being transcended for nefarious purposes, I am convinced. All that Purgatory could really offer someone of a Godly nature would be the stealth, invisibility, except in my case, for I can see them, but in very limited ways.To deceivers, those of great arrogance, to spy on the lesser creatures of earth as they go about their daily tasks, which would include making love, such peeking in would appeal to them. But if God is truth, if he is good, if he values love and love-making, he would not arrange for such a thing as Purgatory. He has only allowed it to be formed because free will reigns, so that love may ultimately reign. Freedom is everything … but it is a two-edge sword, is it not?

I see them when I’m looking for them, but only out of the corners of my eyes. But I do have some forward vision at an angle to both the left and right. Though I’m focused and concentrating on my work, this is when I become most aware of them, peripherally; in a realm one step over, so to speak, a slight shift away, a tiny racheting to the next slot — so that we occupy, in effect, the same space. They can walk right through me, but not because they can transcend matter, perhaps, but because they live in a static alteration of time and light and space.

Sometimes, inside, when I am at my desk, there will be tall ones. Imposing ones, which, of course, don’t impress me. What should they? They need me more than I need them, and because I don’t fear them … they don’t impress me. They don’t impress me further, because they are apparently quite stupid. And, again, as I write that negative assessment, I sense that they would like to injure or stop me. Maybe with some high-tech gadget, which isn’t working, and won’t work. Why? Because they are stupid. And they are stupid, because they believe, have believed, that the godling of this world is God, when he is so not God. How do I know this?And why am I seeing what I am seeing … while no one else appears to be?

If you’re surprised because you know me, I must say I am as surprised as you. Or maybe you’re not so surprised, since I now have the label in town as the community fruitcake who lives in Summertown. A label which may extend well into the city, some thirty miles away, or less. It is only a ten-minute drive or so, without traffic, to one of the most haunted places I can imagine; although it’s obviously haunted up here, too. But I am beginning to understand that it is not a willy-nilly haunting, with spirits here and there, but a whole world of spirits trapped in a place where they do not wish to be … virtually right beside us as we live our lives. Because they are so interested in my writings, which is what attracts them, I can make the following deductions: one, while they can move freely from place to place, they have no substance, no way to exert pressure, no way to used the phone to call out, or the Internet or a simple PC. Because if they could, they wouldn’t be having to lean over my shoulder, sometimes in great numbers, a crowd around me, to see what I’m writing. Because everything I write I put up online; they could access my writing themselves … if they could press the keys on the keyboard.

But, of course, a ghost can’t type, or perform any other kind of work. They’re just watching. But watching what? What is it that is so fascinating about what I’m writing that Purgatory or Hell Lite is turning out to watch me write? And why have they sought me out? I believe they’re all engaged in the business of trying to make decisions for themselves, and others. Which way they will go, when given the chance to run. God is a merciful God in this way: he gives us a second chance … but what a dreary place to exercise it.

They want to know, to be shown lives which are devoted to Jesus, perhaps; to judge for themselves in this way whether they can accept Jesus at this late date on the basis of the actions and the writings of certain people, perhaps. Or, like I said, I am only seeing things .. and I myself am perhaps being led astray by some opposing force that wishes me ill. He must wish me ill, because I am on the side of love, and they lie. No, I’m not being led astray; I have rights now. I’m sane, and surely, I have earned the privilege, the right, the reward … to get up and not have to fall down again as I progress down the road to whatever is coming next. The Holy Days will be Days of Awe, I feel.

— to be continued