Liberty

An allegory of the illusions and follies of men

Guest article by Mel Cairn

Introduction by Occult Mysteries

In these testing times when the Liberty of Man is threatened on all sides by those who would enslave not only his body, but his very mind and Soul, it is appropriate that we choose the famous statue of that name to illustrate this moving and powerful short story, kindly contributed by one of our regular readers and a good friend of the Editors. The base of this statue contains a bronze plaque inscribed with a sonnet by the American poet Emma Lazarus, the last verse of which includes the following lines:

"Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The discerning reader will recognise the occult truths contained in this inspiring verse, which conceals far more than a simple exhortation to human charity and compassion, commendable as these noble virtues are.

N THE DAWN of the new day, the snow fell heavily through the thick, clinging fog that sentenced vision to solitary confinement in a cold, grey prison. Whipped by howling winds, icy flakes screaming inwards from all quarters lashed against my skin with the stinging ferocity of sharp sand. Turning my back to the worst of the onslaught, through squinted eyes I glimpsed a brightness in the midst of the frigid fury and instinctively began to move towards it. The closer I drew to the source, the clearer my vision became until at last, I could plainly see the radiant figure of a man standing alone in the squall, surrounded by an apparently impenetrable shield of still, intransigent air, as though here before me were the quiet calm at the very eye of that ferocious storm. I stopped short of intrusion, torn between the desire to seek sanctuary within that haven of undisturbed peace, and the sense that closer advance might dissipate whatever power it was that held the raging elements at bay.

At that moment, the sound of anguished sobbing penetrated even the screaming howl of that dread maelstrom. The fog swirled in spiralling, icy curls as the figure of a young girl emerged from the greying gloom, running headlong into that region of tranquillity to grasp the legs of the man at its centre; clinging tight and looking up into his face, her body heaving, spasm-wracked with desperate pain. Quivering against him, the hot tears running from the despairing child's eyes rolled down her trembling cheeks, splashing into the snow that carpeted the ground on which they stood, surrounded by the thickening fog, as though entombed in its frigid embrace.

"All is lost," she cried ". . .they have taken everything! Evil men are poisoning everything we love! We tried to stop them. We tried to . . . but they are too powerful; too rich. All is lost. All is lost!"

"Hush now child and hold those bitter tears," he soothed. "Hold them, unless they are of compassion shed for those of whom you speak. I see them, but clearly, stripped of the self-made delusions they draw around their feeble frames. I see them, naked, abandoned, terrified of the fate that they have hooked, which binds them wriggling and writhing in agonised torment, and even now reels them in to their certain doom. Pity them; pity them.

"I see no power. They are enslaved to the most unevolved impulse that stalks this realm. They dwell in a house of perpetual, constant fear; a squalid hovel that they have built with their own grasping hands, terrified that one day, as it must, as it will, the mask behind which they hide their revolting repugnance will slip and fall away, exposing them to their mesmerised acolytes as they truly are. Hollow, vile creatures all, dwelling in carcases made so pustulent by the minds cravenly cowering within, that even starving worms will turn away in the end. Pity them; pity them.

"Slaves to the lowest. Look! See? And what then does that make them, that they are thus mastered? Aye, slaves one and all, and willing, for each and every one of them has purposely and deliberately chosen to crawl on their hate-stuffed bellies in that shadow land, giving themselves heart and mind to their beast. Pity them; pity them.

"Fear is all they know, my child, and they know it very well, for it has wrapped and warped itself around the weft of their every moment in the empty lives they believe that they are living. And because they know it so well, it has become the only weapon they hold in their twisted hands. Look! See how they wield it? See how they swaddle themselves in its foetid raiment? See how they have their smiths fashion it into crosses and shields in the vain and futile attempt to avert discovery? See what evils they enact and witness the disgusting audacity by which they enact them in the name of one whose name they are not fit even to utter. Pity them; pity them.

"Now look again, and see how the beast turns on its enslaved pawns. Watch as the great toad's hunger grows ever more ravenous; ever more rapacious. Look into the cold black beads of its eyes and see how it feeds on its sterile spawn. See how they shrink and shrivel under its relentless gaze. See how their festering forms dwindle to dust as their black, beatless hearts are consumed by its insatiable need to feed. Oh Pity them!

"Be not afraid, and be not drawn into that web of distrust and hatred. Turn your heart to pity, your words to comfort and your mind to the Light. Let it grow within you and with a whole heart, do whatever it moves you to do to brighten the way of those who, as you did but a moment ago, desperately despair. Pray, and work. Pray, and work and never, never allow your mind to return even for one moment to that dread darkness."

One by one the shadows crumbled to dust. A flaming torch appeared in the child's hand and before my eyes, she grew to adulthood—a towering figure radiating Hope; a flaming beacon signalling the way home. A golden path stretched out in Love that every refugee from the rocky shore of night might enter her sanctuary and partake of that gift of Liberty, at the merest glimpse of her Everlasting Light.

NOTE: If you have enjoyed this story you may also like Coincidence: a new article by Mel Cairn about a very strange phenomenon, published in August 2022.

Article © Mel Cairn. Introduction and Afterword © Copyright occult-mysteries.org.
All worldwide rights reserved. Published 26 February 2017. Updated 14 August 2022.

Search our website

Strange Delusion

Afterword by Occult Mysteries

As we have learned from Mel Cairn's moving allegory of the follies of men, humanity labours under many illusions, the strangest of which is the delusion that there is any such thing as death. In this afterword we relate a short parable from the sacred literature of ancient India which tells of a despotic king, who, in order to save his own miserable life is commanded by a demon to sacrifice a young Brāhman boy. The king gets in touch with the boy's parents, and they agree to sell their child to the king.

The parents took hold of the boy's hands and feet, and laying him down upon the stone of sacrifice, stretched his body so that the king might plunge a dagger into the child's heart. At that moment the boy laughed so loudly that all, the demon included, who was there to see that the wicked deed was duly performed, abandoned their efforts. Putting their palms together and bowing, the murderous quartet looked into the child's face with astonishment. Now why did the boy laugh like that at the moment of his impending death? The answer may surprise you; here it is.

It is well known that a weak creature, when danger threatens it, calls upon its father and mother to save its life. And if its father and mother are not present, it invokes the protection of the king, and if it cannot obtain the aid of the king, it calls upon the deity under whose special protection it is according to traditional Indian belief and custom. Now, in the case of this little child, all those were present, and all behaved in exactly the opposite manner to what we might have expected of them.

The child's parents held its hands and feet out of greed of gain, the king was eager to slay it to save his own life, and the Brāhman demon, its protecting deity, was ready to devour it afterwards. Whereupon, the child, beholding all this, said to itself:

"To think that all these, who think themselves so wise, should be so deluded and led so much astray for the sake of the body, which is perishable, loathsome within, and full of pain and disease! Why should they have such a strange longing for the continuance of the body, in a world in which Brahmā, Indra, Vishnu, Shiva, and all the other gods, must perish most certainly at last?"

This is why the child laughed out of sheer joy and wonder at beholding the marvellous strangeness of the delusions and follies of men!

You can read another extract from the sacred literature of ancient India taken from the Chandogya Upanishad on our Religious quotes and occult maxims page.

In it, a proud young boy, who has great opinion of himself and thinks himself very clever learns from his father that worldly knowledge is no passport to Heavenly Wisdom, and that earthly learning, however great, cannot unravel the mysteries of Being.

occult mysteries