The Pupils Diary

THE PUPIL’S DIARY

This
was an entry in my diary, not intended for publication. But the Master said it
should be printed; “like the government health warning on a packet of
cigarettes”.

When an
Adept accepts you as his pupil, that is not the solution to all your problems.
It is the start of bigger problems. This past year has been the hardest of my
life. And the most rewarding and the most worthwhile. I wish I had known that
while I was in the depths. But of course, at that stage, I could not and should
not know. If that was a test, at least I got through that one.

This is
going to sound paradoxical, but it was hard to accept that he is totally
different to ordinary men. I do not mean just special – that to the Nth degree.
100% alien. Not unfriendly alien, but not friendly either. Neutral. Ordinary
human things do not touch him. Someone who did not understand once said: “he
thinks like a computer”, and she was more correct than she can ever know.

An Adept
has no ego. I am only just beginning to understand that. If you possess an ego,
you are affected by other people’s opinions of yourself. Pandering to them, in
other words. Since he is not on the same wavelength, he cannot be affected by
what other people think. He compared it (in DL1) to waking up in a strange
country where you do not speak that language, and added that occasionally one
of the natives would make an effort to communicate. And that is extremely hard
when there is no basis for communication.

If you
were stranded in a foreign country with no means of getting out, you could make
a start. Point to something edible and say “food”. The friendly native would
reply with “kfjvt” or whatever. And on to further vocabulary. In this case, the
interpretation is different because he does not see things the way we do.

Sometimes
he will point out a different way of looking at things. Other times he does not
explain; presumably because I am not yet ready to know.

He
scares me. I do not mean that he gets bad-tempered or irritable. He does not
have moods like ordinary people. It is just that I cannot be sure of anything.
I never know how he will react (or, more often, not react).

I used
to feel so resentful of the miseries he put me through during the last year,
that I wished I had never meet him. Now I am just beginning to realise that
getting through that nightmare (not that I am completely through it yet) has
been of great benefit to my personal development.

I kept
thinking “he can’t do this to me” – and again I was attributing human feelings
to him, when he does not have any. He has a purpose, a very long-term plan in
mind, and everything works to that.

Other
people are not so badly affected, so maybe I should consider it an indication
that I have to advance more than others are capable of doing. At the moment I
am trapped between two worlds; nowhere near his heights, yet I see things so
differently to the way that other people view them. I am beginning to see what
he means about not speaking the same language as the rest of the world.

From the Dark Lily Journal No 2, Society of Dark Lily
(London 1987).