When I got home from school one day in 1959 at 8 yo my father started choking flogging and bashing me I began to black out and knew he was killing me, I landed a left to his face and felt a squishing sensation as I landed a right to his gob area and kicked him .. no use blackout, coming around I could not move or shake off the blackness and blacked out again.
Like walking thru a stage curtain I stepped onto a path of white decomposed granite edged with gray blue stone, the path was undulating between hills of cotton wool texture .. along came a man leading a horse I asked if he knew where the path led and he assured me he did, I waited for him to move off planning to make my own way when he told me he had come for me.
I told him I thought I would have to go back, he glanced in the direction I came from and said I won't be going back which was great news to me and brightened me up considerably, I asked if it was his horse and did it have a name he told me it was his and his name is Bukephalus, after a little more chit chat he lifted me up onto the horse who he told me would take me the rest of the way.
Before I took off on the horse I remembered to ask him his name he said "Ah-Leg-Xander," I asked him to take it slower he said "Alexander" .. the horse took me slowly at first then at a full gallop me hanging on to its mane, along the path which ended at a pair of open arched gates framed by the same pearl blue gray stone that bordered the path, here the horse indicated I should dismount and as he galloped back so did the path recede with him.
The gates then appeared to be floating in space like the door drifting in space in the TV series The Twilight Zone, the outer view was as for a winter's night the stars of the Milky Way and the constellation Sagittarius, one star appeared to be moving and resolved into the figure of a man striding along a path similar to the one I had been on.
He was middle height aged in his early twenties with light olive skin and dark hair, he was lightly bearded and had long legs, he was attired similar to Alexander in a home spun smock affair tied at the waist and sandals Pisces, he drew near and said "Martin I'm Jesus," he gestured with his right hand down and to his right my gaze following his gesture.
I saw my body on the floor of the bedroom I shared with my brother, Mother had just walked into the room and seen my body and was screaming the house down, like making a performance shrieking .. Jesus said "you can stay with me or you can go back," I told him "I will go back," then instead of looking at him I was looking at the gray linoleum on the bedroom floor.
I was pushing myself up on to my hands when Mother came in she looked at me then walked out without saying anything, next Father came in and did the same .. things never changed much maybe nine days later both parents got stuck into me again, with Mother urging him on to batter me at eight years of age.
Later that year he would present me with the bodies of aborted twins to dispose of in a backyard incinerator, I had spoken up in their favor when Mother announced she was off to have an abortion .. after this flogging I am lying in bed when I hear a voice calling my name "Martin," I did not answer, he called me again and again I don't answer.
He called my name the third time "Martin" I said "who's that" he said "God," the next night I am laying in bed the same voice as the previous night calls "Martin..
I said "you said you were God,
He said "I am.
I said "you're God,
He said "yes.
I said "you are actually God,
He said "yes.
I said "I hear voices all the time, they are not God,
He said "no, they're not,
I said "but you are,
He said "yes.
I formed an image in my mind of a large sweeping bay of white sand beaches near where I lived in Adelaide South Australia, and asked if he knew how many grains of sand there were, he said he did .. I picked up a handful of sand and told him I have the same problem of being unable to check, then telling him not to look held three grains between thumb and forefinger and asked "how many?" he said "three" I told him ok I believe he is God.
I asked him if he knows everything he said he does, I said "if there was something that you did not know you would not know you did not know it, so you should not really say you know everything," he says he knows that too .. I said "you know there is nothing you do not know" he said "yes," I said "sure."
He asked if I wanted to know anything, I asked him if there is a Hell he said there is then asked if there was anything at all he could do for me, I told him "I would like a guided tour of Hell please", he said "sure are you right" I said "are we going right away he said we were .. it was dark like it was night time from where his voice was coming there just seemed to be a mist of grainy gold light.
He went before me and the wall of the house just seemed to be gone, my spirit body astral body if you will just followed his light and for a moment I saw the outside of the house illuminated by a street light in the rain, then we were aloft and into the clouds and total blackness, after maybe forty seconds there was a light .. I said "I can see a light," he said "that's where we are going and I want to see a good landing."
The light resolved into the figure of a man picture King Kong Bundy the great athlete from the world of pro wrestling, that's what this guy looked like, he wore a full length gown of some brown material over a white full length smock affair Allah said "this is Philemon he will be your guide," Philemon is the warden of Hell I stood still while he received his instructions facing the light, he is a big guy and pale phosphorescent light shone from his person he nodded a couple of times and spoke.
The golden light of Allah faded and the big guy turned to me, we appeared to be standing in the pool of his light on a vast stone plain bare rock and blackness beyond, he said "when you came here you just came through the air right" I said yes I had, he said "this is just the same watch," and he just walks out off of a precipice into a vast abyss..
He is hanging there in mid air and says "come on out," out I go and standing beside him see that we are unsupported a couple of meters from the cliff edge, he starts talking to the stone as he does the figure of a man resolves among the cracks and ledges at the cliff top, Philemon told me this is another of the guards of Hell whose instructions are that I should pass.
He said "we are going down" like being in an elevator down we went into Hell, we were going down a long way black stone all the way I began to wonder if there was ever going to be a bottom, when in the gloom one perceived Gothic arches tombs in various stages of construction, eight or nine in number some firmly chiseled giving the appearance of dressed stone others mere outlines carved into the rock.
We were past the overhang of a vast cavern .. our descent had slowed, the ghastly figure of a human being blue white skin stretched over bones shrouded by a mist of fine white hair, crouched chipping stone with a crude mallet and chisel at the entrance to one of the tombs, flees shrieking into its interior at our vertical approach.
Then landing at the top of a steep narrow path beside terraces carved into the rock, on the upper terrace twenty two crouching figures like hologram images their human features become the features and visages of eagles, another terrace below with one hundred and nineteen figures representing lesser raptors, hawks and kites similarly changing appearance from bird to man.
One is blind, there is the mummified body of a man who appears to have been felled by a sword stroke to his left knee then finished off with a sword thrust thru his left eye exiting the back of his head, another terrace below almost hidden in the gloom has eight or nine figures smooth and rounded like stones in a stream bed, some fairly large man sized some smaller.
We take a few more steps down and along the path and reach a landing there are crouching figures below and ahead, Philemon turns to me and says "this is Hell, of all who have entered here none have left," we were standing at the top of a circular pit no more than a few meters in diameter, containing the crouching figures of one hundred and twenty two comely blue green winged creatures.
Attending them are two hideous demons one in human form though scaled like a snake, the other a small black figure with short thick bat like wings, to our front the wall falls away and dejected amid his defeated company is Satan crouched, his left arm stretched around his drawn up left knee cradling his right arm and shattered right shoulder, his right leg is amputated high up with a portion of bone sticking out of the raw stump like a leg roast in a butcher's window.
A small quantity of dark green blood is pooled on the stone below the wound .. past him three hundred and twenty nine human figures their group profile suggesting the arboreal physiognomy of a low sturdy powerful tree, its leaves and branches indeed the heads faces and limbs of the fallen these are the recidivists of Hell.
See on the other wall further in past the tombs a low stone shelter maybe four meters long a meter or so high and twelve hundred mm wide built onto the almost vertical slope, this is the dwelling of Chablis the Devil of the Darkness.
Higher the stone levels out and one can perceive in the gloom what looks like a hospital bed with two demon attendants, themselves attended by the green, glowing bearded human figure of another of the guards of Hell, further in thru and beyond the entrance of another cavern faintly illuminated in pale phosphorescence, the dark billows and strong current of an underground river.
A flat bottomed craft is against a stone landing a gaunt straining figure is poling his vessel into the stonework against the fierce pull of the current, this is Charon the Ferryman, the boat is about two thirds laden with the crouching figures of one hundred and two women in twelve rows of eight then six more.
The furthest back a commanding and imposing woman of indeterminate age, black flowing hair with a broad band of silver giving her a curious badger like appearance, read Dodie Smith's book 101 Dalmatians, her description of Cruella de Vil surely resembles this lady in Hell with her hundred and one acolytes .. Hell is full of similar ironies.
The other passengers each seem to have gone aboard at different times later, the most recent a woman in her fifties her black hair streaked with gray, her bony lezzo's face expressing only anxiety and an immediate readiness for departure, as she and her companions in their turn chant the litany then the response to the Rosary.
The landing had another occupant .. another of the guards in a sentry box affair carved into the stone, a young soldierly type dressed in a full length white smock, his shoulder length fair hair held by a circlet of some bright metallic substance, armed with a broadsword he fixed his gaze upon me like I was a candidate for execution and adjusted his grip on the sword.
I had noted he and his sword were more than capable of causing the death of the mummified body on the terrace and of severing Satan's leg .. Philemon told him to put up the sword explaining I was on tour, I proceeded to go straight ahead when Philemon indicated our way was to the right thru an entrance and into another cavern, then downward via a ramp deeply rutted and strewn with boulders.