Chapter VI: Berchtesgaden, 1919, part I

Chapter VI: Berchtesgaden, 1919, part I

Acar pulled in next to the lamp post. If he hoots to get our attention, he’s no gentleman, Maria thought to herself. Instead, she saw the driver exit, in spite of the blizzard, and head towards the house.

“They’ve arrived,” she said to Sigrun. It was Lothar. He had been warned against driving, but refused to take heed, being eager to get back in action even though his body was against it. Sometimes Maria thought that Lothar hadn’t really grasped that the war had been lost.

“Ladies,” he greeted them formally.

It was about two hours’ drive. They set off in darkness and it grew even darker as they kept on driving. “The view would be simply magnificent,” Lothar said. “Of course, it’s too dark to see it now. In the morning, as we head back.”

“Why is it necessary to take such a long trip?” Sigrun asked, pressing herself against Maria for warmth.

“The lodge is at the foot of Untersberg,” Lothar said. “It’s a magic mountain with great secrets. It’s always been said that it’s the resting place of Charlemagne, from where he shall rise one day.”

In the rear-view mirror, Maria could see him taking a surreptitious glance at the ladies, to see if he had managed to scare or excite them.

“Would that day be today?” Maria asked mockingly.

“I’m sure the general or Baron von Sebottendorf will explain it more precisely.”

After two hours, the ladies had eaten all their biscuits and sandwiches but their destination was still wrapped in darkness. “Be there in no time,” Lothar assured them. The ladies had heard this before.

After having dozed off, they were awakened by the car slowing down and taking a turn towards a secluded building, decorated with a couple of torches on either side of the entrance.

“Here we are, ladies.”

It was a rather large hunting lodge, built in the Gothic revival style. Just behind it, the majestic silhouette of the Untersberg Mountain was towering above the landscape. There was a strange, barely visible glow over the crest. Maria glanced at her wrist watch: it was barely eight in the evening. Here it felt as if a perpetual midnight was ruling over these lands.

The door opened and General Haushofer and Baron von Sebottendorf came to receive the guests. The lodge had apparently become disused in recent years. There were countless dust-covered stuffed deer heads and antlers mounted on oak plates, each one meticulously labelled with the exact date of the kill. Everything was at least ten years old; most of the creatures had been roaming the woods in the previous century. The ladies were offered some refreshments and hot punch. Maria exchanged warm greetings with Prelate Gernot, who had grown significantly older since their last meeting. More Thulists had gathered: Maria met an elderly gentleman called Eckart and a nice young man of her own age, Alfred Rosenberg. There was a gentleman who was introduced to her, as representing the Lords of the Black Stone — another occult organization that stood close to the Thule Society. Two gentlemen, called Jensen and Delitzsch, were, as Prelate Gernot explained, the Panbabylonists — experts in the ancient Babylonian culture, which in its turn was the driving force behind the Aryan race and culture.

Hella was already there. “You’ve met Countess von Westarp,” the General said. “She’s immensely efficient! What would our Society do without her?”

Hella smiled modestly and curtsied. Prelate Gernot approached with another young man.

“Ladies, may I: his Serene Highness, Prince Gustav von Thurn und Taxis.”

This was the first prince Maria had ever met. She was disappointed to notice the lack of anything remotely dashing in the man, who was short-sighted, extremely shy and rather skinny. He raised Maria’s hand to his lips, which resembled and were as cold as those of a fish.

Mart Sander

Another lady, patrician in stature and heavily jewelled, descended the stairs. General Haushofer took a few swift steps to welcome her.

“Your Serene Highness! May I please introduce…”

“Maria Orsic, the renowned spiritualist from Vienna,” the lady interrupted him in a voice that didn’t permit disagreement. She was everything the prince wasn’t: regal and majestic, pale and exquisite like an ivory carving. She was perhaps some ten years older than Maria, and her whole appearance oozed an aura of omnipotent sophistication. With a gesture of supreme grace and yet simplicity that was the trademark of nobility of the highest rank, she reached out her hands and embraced Maria.

“Call me Franziska,” she said.

General Haushofer was instantly at her side, taking care of the formal part that was not to be skipped.

“Her Serene Highness, Franziska Romana, Princess zu OettingenOettingen and Oettingen-Spielberg.”

“And a great admirer of yours,” the princess added.

Before Maria could even ask how this grand lady knew about her work, the general hastened to explain:

“Her highness is a most generous supporter of our cause. She is deeply interested in the work of the Panbabylonist Society and Sumerian culture.”

“Indeed,” the princess concurred. “I have always predicted that one day the spiritual link between the Sumerians of the old and our modern times will be established. You have proved me right!” She embraced Maria again. Her heavily nostalgic perfume of forget-menots reminded Maria of the fragrances she had been missing in Vienna since the collapse of the empire.

Maria curtsied. The princess took her arm and led her towards the dining room.

“We really must get together when I’m in Munich,” she said. “You’re my link to the past I have always longed for. I want to see through your eyes. Perhaps, if we’re together, I could partake in a visit of the ancient spirit that has been talking through you.”

“It would be an honour, Your Highness,” Maria said.

“Franziska!” the princess corrected her.

After a few servings of hot punch from a steaming bowl, the newcomers felt quite at ease. Maria had the sensation of attending a New Year’s Eve party, quite as they were before the war, when she had been young and innocent.

“You probably wonder, why we chose this remote location and this rather deserted house for our meeting,” the prelate said, after having invited everyone to a room with a bulky fireplace and two large suits of armour shielding non-existent knights. “But when we call a place remote, we think of our own urban perspective. Far from Berlin, far from Vienna — but are the cities really the central places? They are not, because our Earth has its own structure: its veins, its arteries, its pain points and its nerve endings. And just as a human being has his orifices, so does the Earth. Should one reach down our throat, one would eventually touch our heart. It’s the same with our planet. There are entrances which lead straight to the inner realms of Earth. One of those is here.”

He walked to the window, looking out into the darkness which hid the mountain from sight. “This is a significant place; perhaps the most significant, not only in Germany, but in the whole of Europe. Even the Tibetans knew about it. When I had the privilege of conversing with the great spiritual leader of the Tibetans, Dalai Lama, he called Germany ‘the Land of the Midnight Mountain’. According to him, this is one of the chakras, the energy knots of the Earth, a place which is a cosmic axis of the planet.

“Untersberg is also one of the few entrances to the inner world that Bulwer-Lytton described in his book. There are caves in this majestic mountain, from which nobody has ever returned, but from which very strange people or animals have occasionally emerged. I knew an explorer who went into these caves and, after a couple of days desperately searching for an exit, found himself walking out into the Andes! Meanwhile, as he soon learnt, six months had passed without him realizing what had happened to him. Had it not been for the help of the local missionaries and the German consulate, we would perhaps never have heard his story.

“Old people still tell a tale of a strange dark shepherd maiden and her bizarre looking goat who emerged from one of the caves about

Mart Sander half a century ago. The poor creature was unable to understand what had happened to her; nobody understood her language and she, naturally, had no knowledge of any European languages. She soon died of the shock of her experience; the goat is stuffed in a local Natural History Museum and we now know it to be an Indian Chigu goat. This has led the locals to believe that the caves of Untersberg are mysterious shortcuts to other places and probably other times. An age-old legend says that Charlemagne himself is resting inside this mountain, in an underworld palace, and will one day arise to lead the World. If this place acts as a time portal, perhaps indeed Charlemagne is just resting with his knights and when they awaken, a thousand years will have passed.”

“You’re not suggesting that we all go mountain climbing, dear prelate?” Hella joked and gave a nervous giggle in which the other ladies joined.

“We have more important matters at hand, dear Countess,” the prelate replied. “For there are moments, when Untersberg looks towards the constellation of Taurus, with no other celestial bodies blocking the view or interfering. On these nights, there is what we might call a cosmic tide. When our Moon causes tides and ebbs on the physical level, some events seem to cause similar effects on the spiritual level. Have you ever heard an interesting word — ‘syzygy’?”

Since the gentlemen in the company looked expectantly at the ladies, it seemed to be clear that they were familiar with it. The ladies were not.

“The word comes from Ancient Greece,” the Prelate continued. “It can be roughly translated as ‘yoked together’. In astronomy, it signifies many different events — conjunctions or oppositions of the planets and stars. Today, a very interesting configuration takes place: all the other planets of our system are on the opposite side of the Sun, leaving the Earth with almost no cosmic interaction. The exact moment when they are the farthest from us, with the moon being on the opposite side of the Earth, a cosmic impulse hits our planet — hits the Midnight Mountain.”

“And this is the night?” Maria asked.

“It is,” the prelate confirmed. “It will occur in twenty minutes.”

“So… what will happen?” Sigrun whispered.

The prelate spread his hands apologetically.

“How can we predict that? Perhaps another traveller will exit from the caves? Perhaps Charlemagne will awaken?”

He returned to the table, where the guests had taken their seats.

“This house was built by our good friend, the great writer and mystic, Guido von List,” he continued. “It is a great pity that he is currently in very poor health, being seventy years of age. He is passionate about the spiritual powers of the mountains and especially Untersberg Mountain. In his younger years, he had several mystic experiences here during the rare occurrences of syzygy. About twenty years ago, List experienced almost a year of temporary blindness. He had himself brought here, where he patiently awaited the right cosmic moment. When it arrived, he experienced what he referred to as the opening of his Inner Eye. In a cosmic vision, the Secret of the Runes came to him. The eighteen Armanen runes are encoded in a structure of a hexagonal crystal. When light is being shone through a crystal under different angles, all these runes are being projected. Von List was certain that the runic alphabet was revealed to him by the sleeping subconscious of Charlemagne, amplified by the cosmic impulse from the direction of Taurus, where we find Aldebaran — so prominently marked in your subconscious drawing.”

The prelate fell silent and even though the information had been shared with the whole company, Maria felt the eyes of everyone now turning towards her. As if to underline the expectation, the Prince von Thurn und Taxis pushed some sheets of paper and a pen towards her, without saying a word. Maria stared at the paper. “Should I… Is there a ritual I should perform…?”

“My dear, let the rituals be for the pleasure of the paying customers,” von Sebottendorf now said. “We each have a unique and private way to open our minds and spirits to the Universe. Let’s just begin with clearing our thoughts of all things mundane.”

He closed his eyes and placed his hands on the table, palms turned upwards. Instinctively, many members of the company assumed the same position. It became very quiet. The fire in the fireplace was dying, but no-one moved to add logs to the flames. The bleak winter wind was clawing at the window panes, meowing like a lost cat. Maria

Mart Sander closed her eyes and it felt as if a great shadow had descended over her. She was uncertain what she should concentrate on — or if she should concentrate on nothingness. Were there spirits of the mighty ancestors who might wish to speak through her? Or was the message to come from those who inhabited the inner Earth?

Maria took the pencil in her hand, placed the tip on the paper and breathed out. She needed an inner vacuum to distance herself from her body, to make it open and available to a visitor from other worlds. She addressed the universe with words that came to her from nowhere:

Cosmic ray — pierce my heart as an arrow. Cosmic wave — wash over me and purify my senses. Cosmic fire — make me glow in the darkness so I may see what has lain hidden. Cosmic voice — speak to my spirit in unknown words. Take me there, where nothing is ever ything , where seconds become millennia, where time flows in every direction and matter ceases to exist.

When Maria breathed in, she felt no air in her lungs. It was light she was breathing; not a light that could be visible to the eye, but the light that reveals everything that ever was and will be to the soul. She wasn’t afraid, she had neither the wish to return nor to stay, neither to be nor to stop being. She was an aftermath of a pulsation that had once been, a memory of a vibration that was yet to come.

The great shadow was lifted and she again perceived light in the visible spectrum on her closed eyelids. There remained a sound, a cosmic resonance, but she realized it was a low humming that she herself was producing. She stopped and opened her eyes; for a second it felt as if she was being born.

“Welcome, my child,” a soft voice of Prelate Gernot said. “We were expecting you back.”

“How long has it been?” Maria said, while the Prince handed her a glass of water, his round eye-glasses misty with agitation.

“Perhaps ten minutes, hardly more,” General Haushofer said.

“I’m sorry,” Maria said, after taking a sip. “I’m sorry I disappointed you.”

“But you didn’t, my dear!” Baron von Sebottendorf proclaimed. In his hand he had a sheet of paper with markings and strange spiral drawings on it.

“The runes!” he almost shouted. “Lots of them! With many more variations I have seen before. Von List must be contacted immediately; he’s the only one who can give us the exact translation of this message! But even the few words I can read, only confirm my expectations, the expectations of us all!”

“Look at these beautiful symbols,” the man introduced to Maria as Eckart said, standing next to von Sebottendorf, seemingly fascinated by one which resembled a tormented spider.

“Did — did I write all that?” Maria asked.

“You did — and much more! You sang to us!” von Sebottendorf seemed to be ecstatic. “The mantra I heard the Tibetan monks of the Yellow Hats hum as they were preparing themselves for a contact with a great spirit.”

“I’ve heard it too,” General Haushofer confirmed. “This mantra is never written down, taught or studied. It cannot be learnt or repeated, even though once heard it is instantly recognisable. It is one of the most sacred ones, which will be sent to a person once he or she is ready to channel great knowledge. The singer never knows that he has sung it. I’ve heard only one monk, who had reached a high level of enlightenment, hum it — it was some time before the cosmic voice spoke through him. It is a sign of being a chosen one!”

“But why choose me?” Maria asked after a moment’s hesitation. “What is there of such importance that a great sprit would choose me as its instrument?”

“I think I can answer that,” Prelate Gernot said. He gestured to Lothar to light some candles and the space with blurred boundaries transformed back to an old-fashioned dining room.

The prelate resumed his seat and invited everyone to do the same.

“What I believe will throw a great deal of light on the matter is a letter I have received from America.”