CHAPTER FIVE
It was in fact three days before FM visited me again. The pressure of coming to terms with what I was got on top of me. As best I could, outside of work, I involved myself around the family to take my mind off the facts – an effort to feel as normal as possible before my Special journey began. I couldn’t possibly discuss anything with Sian. Jill couldn’t be trusted with this information either, since her jealousy was becoming even more apparent.
I could appreciate how the work ahead was going to affect me, but what of those around me? This was to be the subject of FM’s next lesson.
“Stephen, come speak to me”.
I turned to see FM standing in the doorway of the kitchen. Although he still had the same appearance, still faceless, his presence had a slightly different feel to it – I must have been getting more comfortable with our identities.
“It is time to consider the price you will have to pay in order to achieve your redemption. We also have to consider what price we expect others to pay for our success. I know this is something that you have been deep in thought over recently”.
“Do I need a stiff drink for this?” I asked, a little dread beginning to creep into my thoughts.
“A good pot of coffee perhaps. Maybe you should try Brazilian instead of Colombian?” He had found a sense of humour. “I left you alone for days to allow you time to deal with the knowledge of your quest. I have seen you struggle to accept that you really could have been such an evil being. As I have tried to explain, you are only a small part of your real self, Satan will grow within you. As you develop your ability and acceptance of what you can cause and achieve, changes will become more noticeable. Have you noticed any already?”
“Yes, and others have noticed as well, they are worried about my mental stability. Sian has said that she hardly recognises me at times. I suppose I’m not really the person she married anymore?”
“I don’t think anyone would have wanted to marry what you are to become, do you?” It was a question I had already asked myself several times.
“Before we embark on your quest we must contemplate its effect on those close to you. The work you have in front of you will meet many forms of opposition, in both the spirit and physical worlds. Religious groups will attack you verbally and physically, and the corrupt governments will wish to silence you before you can gain too much support. History has shown us what lengths people will go to in order to keep their position of power and wealth. Imagine what lengths the Devil will go to in order to stop you. Evil in its physical and spirit forms could hurt you or those about you. What you have to decide is what price are you prepared to pay, for you and them?”
“I have thought of little else.”
“Stephen, take for example a member of a Mafia family turning to the opposition and attacking his former family. What do you think the reaction would be to the traitor? He would be hunted down, tortured and eventually murdered. Now imagine what hurt the Devil would want to try and inflict on the leader of his evil armies who has turned back to God. Whatever horrible tortures you can imagine a man performing would be nothing compared to the tortures of Hell - remember, that in Hell, the tortures can last an eternity. Just as it was when you were with me as Peter, you must decide how best to protect your family from evil forces.”
I began to recall pieces from the Gospel. “That’s why you asked them to leave their families behind before following you?” It had always puzzled me that the disciples had to leave all they cared for behind, just to prove love and obedience to Christ.
“Luke 14: 26-27. Read it”. FM gestured for me to pick up the bible that was visible on the bookcase in the adjoining room.
I had a rough idea where the New Testament began, then thumbed chunks of pages. “Luke 3…17…12…ah! 14.”
I read out aloud, “‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes even his own life - he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.’”
FM shrugged his shoulders, “What happened to ‘Honour thy mother and father’? Is it any wonder my teachings could not be accepted by certain religions, so much misunderstanding? Do they think I could ask anyone to hate all they loved just to prove to me that I was the most important thing in their life? Could they believe that I would cause so much pain just to feed my ego? It would be difficult to see the difference between good and evil would it not?”
FM was making so much sense; it was so obvious now that I knew the real reason for Christ’s demands of his disciples. “You asked them to leave all they cared for in order that evil would not see them as a target, a way to attack the disciple.”
“Exactly…and because the evil forces are constantly surrounded by hate they would not be able to track the families down very easily. If they still held onto their love, the trail from the disciple to the loved ones would stand out so clearly amongst the hate vibrations. Because of the tracking danger it would be better for the disciple to cause those he left behind to hate him as well.”
I played dumb. I knew what he was saying but I wanted him to say it, to command it, release me from the guilt of taking this decision.
“Stephen, the decision you made as Peter will have to be made again, right now. Remember that to succeed in your quest will effect all families now and to come. If you return to Heaven the army of light will be strong enough to wipe out the dark, forever. We cannot jeopardise what you must achieve. It is a very difficult decision; to help you make it quickly I must tell you that even if you stayed together it would only be eight years before Stephen Lewis would die. There would be no guarantee of eight happy years either.”
Happy years? I had to think hard to remember previous happy moments, let alone years. Yes, of course, there were births, Xmas and weddings. Recently though, we were surviving days as a family rather than enjoying them. How much more could the marriage take anyway, not eight years that’s for sure? How long before someone else did notice the lacy bra holding in the firming bust? And how long before someone else would be enjoying the ‘early nights’?
It wasn’t a decision that took long to make. After recovering from the initial shock of FM’s revelation of my death, I could only come to one conclusion. To leave my family and friends behind would protect them, and to succeed in my quest would protect my, and everyone else’s, future generations.
“We must succeed FM, we must make sure that it will all be worth it.”
FM placed two hands on my shoulders. “I knew you would make the right decision. However, you must not tell anyone the reason you are to leave all behind you. Remember how the love/hate tracking can work against you. The more hate the better the disguise.”
Oh there would be plenty of hate, I was sure of that. What on earth were they going to think of me? In the past I had made decisions with good intentions, but when the decisions resulted in the family going without I would be blamed and maybe, in the heat of the moment, even hated.
There was a period when finances became extremely strained. I sought extra income through direct sales. It backfired dreadfully. I was so busy trying to make it work that I never took the time to stand back and really look at how much, or how little, extra income I earned. Believing this opportunity to be the Special opportunity I had waited so long for, I fell for all the motivational speeches. I lost myself in my dreams of a better life, permanently. I didn’t realise, until it was too late that just by staying in the business and buying the training materials, books and tapes, people at the top were earning from me. Friends warned me that this was the case but I had fallen for the propaganda. I was well primed to reply to the knockers by telling them that ‘they weren’t going to cheat me out of my opportunity.’ Hence my social circles became ever decreasing, even if I’d had the time to be sociable. Eventually my bank manager and my bank balance forced me to see sense. Not before I had messed up birthdays and summer holidays with the investment in our future.
I could only imagine and dread the reaction to my leaving my wife and two children with no real explanation.
“How am I to go about it FM?”
“Don't panic about that, we will sort that out for you. Just act as normal when it happens, well as normal as you can.” It had been so long since I felt normal; I wondered if I would remember how to act like it. “Just go with the flow. It will work out okay eventually.” I wasn’t as convinced as FM appeared to be.
The catalyst to use for the marriage break-up was to be Jill. Sian had already become uncomfortable with the increasing amount of time Jill and I were spending together. What had started as an hour or two per week, sitting in the meditation group together, became more than ten hours as I began to work the church circuit with her. On top of this my time spent in my own meditations and time with FM was isolating me even further from the family. It was difficult enough for Sian to appreciate what I was trying to do, to her friends and family it was totally unacceptable behaviour. Eventually the whispered suspicions in Sian’s ears caused a confrontation. “If you have to continue your church work it will have to be with someone else. People are talking about you and her; they think I’m a fool to let you carry on as you are. You never want to do anything with the kids and me; I’m fed up of it. Spirit, spirit, spirit, all the bloody time! You’re spending more time with the dead that you are with the living!”
I pleaded my innocence, as any normal person would. The argument, however, got more and more heated. I had realised what was happening, this was the opportunity to leave the family in order to protect them. I need not worry about creating the trail of hate. Satan, in the guise of Stephen Lewis, had less patience than Stephen had. A foul-mouthed barrage of blame and insults were fired at will in Sian’s direction. All the tiny annoyances became huge problems that I hated deeply. I blamed her smoking during pregnancy for Sinead’s condition and wished the punishment of lung cancer upon her. How I had become so sensitive to overlong toenails during bedtime I did not know, but now it justified a “Fucking lazy bitch!”
I was about to walk out on my wife and two children, there were already debts to clear, and Sian’s mother had been recently diagnosed with stomach cancer. I was about as popular as a Jewish pig farmer in Jerusalem. My bags were soon packed and I was living at my parents home just a mile away.
I was a little worried that by being around my parents may result in evil tracking them down. I needed FM to confirm their non-involvement in my quest.
FM explained that although evil could track down via a trail of parental love, it was not as strong as the feeling of being in love with someone. Anyway, soon I would have the means to support a flat of my own. I could then distance myself completely from everyone except those who were vital to my quest.
Even after taking all these steps there would be no guarantee that evil would not find them, there was still the element of coincidence to consider.
FM ripped into me one day over the fact that I was being too understanding of people’s hatred for me. “What is the point in disguising their love trail to you if you are going to leave a trail of love from you to them?” I think it was for this reason that they caused an incident to occur that would leave my blood boiling and make me realise how much Stephen’s personality was daily becoming more like Satan’s.
I needed to collect some mislaid paperwork. As I walked towards Sian’s, formerly our, house, I came across a group of my daughter’s friends. As I passed one lad of about eleven years of age he shouted, “The affair man is back!” He had been used to my placid, friendly personality. His face was expecting a reply of, “you cheeky little sod,” and a laugh. Instead he got an accidental elbow that forced him off his bike, sending him over the handlebars and into a large nettle bush. I didn’t even feel guilty, I wished he’d cracked his head open on the way down as well.
When I reached the house I confronted Sian over the gossip that was being spread for all to hear, including our children. Many insults were traded, our parting words were, ‘Drop dead’ and ‘you as well.’ As I walked back towards my parent’s house I had a head full of pictures of my daughter crying because of what everyone was saying about me. Although I knew it was for the best it wasn’t easy to cope with the fact that your children hated you.
Sian made a petition for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour. As I read the list of evidence of what a horrible, uncaring, selfish pig of a husband and father I was supposed to have been, I could feel an explosive build up of energy inside me. There was no recognition of the early work I put in for Sinead’s physiotherapy. Not a mention of the hours I spent getting her to crawl up and down the stairs – working all the muscles and tendons. Neither was there a mention of the times when I had gone without minor luxuries, just so that the kids would have the present they really wanted. The times I sold my CD collection to raise enough money for Luke’s goalkeeper’s jersey.
There was just a long list of negative events that I was being blamed for – totally unbiased of course. I would be lucky not to get a six-month prison sentence let alone a bloody divorce.
For the first time since FM revealed whom I really was, I could actually believe it one hundred percent. I wanted to tear out the heart of the accuser, look them in the eyes as I did it. I was full of hate, an intensity that I would never have believed I, Stephen Lewis that is, was capable of feeling. I knew now exactly who and what I was, and it scared me. I was afraid to look at my reflection in the mirror until my feeling of pure hatred had left, and that was not for at least half an hour.
FM came forward to calm me down. “It is the divorce going through that is important. The who, what and whys, will be forgotten soon enough by the gossips. If you challenge the divorce it will cause a delay, which you do not need. In this instance you will have to concede the battle in order to win the war. Do you understand?” Again, I had no argument against FM’s wisdom, and I did not contest the divorce.
In order not to drag the problems through the churches I stopped sitting in Jill’s group, I also stopped working the church circuit with her. With the realisation that I was keeping something from her, the lack of trust between us would have destroyed that area of work anyway. I kept in touch with the occasional phone call instead. In a way it was a good thing for my own development. Previously I had relied too much on Jill, now I would have to depend on my own ability and my own spirit helpers and guides.
Sian found it easier to talk with me once Jill was off the scene. The divorce was still a must, we both accepted that too much had been done and said to recover our marriage, at least that was my excuse. The kids were beginning to worry about Christmas. I weakened. For their sakes Sian and I agreed to spend the holidays as a family, neither of us having a new partner at the time. With Sian spending a lot of time visiting her mother in hospital it was a situation I felt wouldn’t develop into any kind of threat to my quest.
Although it wasn’t very often, when Sian and I were alone together it was obvious that there was a feeling of missing each other since the split. Although I knew I should maintain feelings of hate, and so should she, I eventually cracked.
She returned from hospital one evening, very tearful. I tried; as best I could, to comfort her with a hug. We had both missed the sexual part of our marriage. Since the split I hadn’t had any sexual action. As far as I knew Sian hadn’t either. The hug was to have finished with a gentle kiss on the forehead. However, the forehead was followed by the tip of the nose and then gently on the lips. Two hearts were pumping pints and pints of blood around the body, in particular to one part of my body. It was very noticeable and confirmed my openness to approach. Sian confirmed hers by opening her mouth for more passionate kissing. I wanted to know what I had missed out on, several months ago, when she had offered an early night in her new lacy bra.
With the added excitement of doing something we shouldn’t have, we couldn’t stop tearing each other’s clothes off. It was like making love again for the first time, but there were no inhibitions or fear of coming on too strong. During the Christmas holidays we were both able to get rid of a lot of aggression in a positive manner.
After two weeks back as a family it was going to be so difficult to give it all up for a second time. Sian knew there had to be an extremely deep and important reason for the need for me to leave. After intense pressure from her questioning I confessed the reasons I had to go.
All things considered she took it fairly well, but she did think I needed to see a psychiatrist. She certainly reacted to my confession better than FM.
“So much time, so much effort wasted!
“But it was only a couple of weeks FM. Nobody has been traced on the love vibration.”
“Tonight I will show you what you could bring upon your family if you lead evil to them.” He didn’t give me the opportunity to defend myself; I would have to wait until I met with him out of body in my sleep state.
FM was still fuming with me, “If they try to understand the reasons they will not have as much protection from the hate vibration. Now follow me and learn, please learn!” We descended towards a cave entrance; we were about to enter the tunnels leading to hell. A slight breeze wafted up the dark corridors, bringing with it the unmistakable scent of…sulphur.
It was strange that we entered unchallenged. FM told me that they were used to seeing us down there. When I asked him to explain in greater detail he said, “You will learn what I wish to teach you first.” I thought it best not to push my luck by asking more of him.
On our route to the depths of Hell we passed through an area known as ‘The valley of the lost souls’. In corridors resembling mine tunnels - damp, dark and smelly - you could make out figures of people curled up in a ball and crying.
“What are they doing here?” I thought it safe to ask.
“They are waiting for death to come and take them. Some have been here for centuries, refusing to give up life and to take the journey on to the real world. They trust nobody; it is now down to chance who will find them first, demons or heavenly angels. Sometimes they can sneak back to where they came from; they are the ghosts that haunt the earth plain. Sometimes they go back to find their old homes changed to their dislike, they get angry and start to create poltergeist activity. Never mind them for now, we need to move on much deeper.”
We reached our destination. As we had got closer to it the atmosphere had become increasingly negative. There was a point when a mother and young child had run out of the darkness pursued by a group of vicious demons. The chasers were all part human but also part animal, some with talons not hands, others with teeth like a wolf, some with badly scarred heads. All the demons had an odour that was as unpleasant as their appearance. Now we were at our deepest point were we about to see worse than a talon piercing a child’s neck, flinging it into the air to spread blood-chilling screams throughout the blackened sulphurous corridors? Were we to witness worse than a mother and daughter being ripped to pieces and eaten? The answer was probably going to be ‘yes’.
We were in an area of black rock that reflected the flickering flames rising from the ground. FM pointed, “Look over there. Watch very carefully and put in their place you and your family.”
I gazed in horror at the scene before me. There were several varieties of hideous creatures holding onto a hysterical screaming man. “No, no, no, please no more! No more!” Although Stephen Lewis would not have understood his language, this out of body spirit could. The man appeared to be of African origin, he was wearing a kind of military style outfit. He was being dragged to an area in front of three poles. Tied to one of the poles was a black woman, her dress torn and filthy. At the pole next to her was a young black boy who was cursing and swearing with obscenities that would cause any hardened ‘Dockers’ to blush. Chained to the next pole was a black toddler who was chewing at the wooden pole.
FM explained what was going on. “He is the husband of the lady that is tied up over there, along with their five year old son and baby daughter. His enemies caused all their deaths in an arson attack. He was a guerrilla leader in Africa, responsible for thousands of rapes and murders of anyone who happened to be in his path. He is paying for his crimes. Now remember, his punishments can last an eternity. He will stay here until his soul is traded for new, whenever that may be.” The point FM was trying to get me to understand began to hit home. I was taking in deep breaths, I wondered if my sleeping physical body was doing the same.
As the man continued to plead for mercy his wife spat at him and cursed with a tone of deep felt abhorrence. It was no wonder she felt such hatred toward her spouse, he was the reason she was about to be skinned alive. A talon punctured an eyeball, which the husband was forced to chew and then swallow. The beasts then forced his face against hers as a kissing gesture. She turned her head slightly to spit out the chunk of his lip that she had bitten off as he squealed in agony. Only a few feet away from his face she was beheaded. Not in a quick humane action but in a slow sawing action with the serrated edge of a short sword.
The son had his chest ripped apart by the talons of one of the beasts. His heart was removed. The father would have to consume this and other body parts.
As for the toddler, it had obviously been starved. Blood poured from its mouth, a result of it attempting to eat its own tongue. One of the beasts loosened the chains in order to free one of the baby’s arms; but only so that the child could attempt to sink what teeth it had into its flesh. The father’s face was then offered as an alternative menu.
It was only anger that held back my tears. FM held my shoulders then said, “Now watch what happens.”
After a pause of a few minutes the whole process of torture repeated itself.
“This will go on and on and on,” explained FM “What the man doesn’t realise is that the woman and children are not genuine, it is only he that is to be punished. To him this is all too authentic. In your case Stephen I think they would definitely make it real if they traced Sian and the kids.”
I knew now what I must do as soon as possible to protect my family.
As we made our way out of Hell we came across a woman tied to a wall by chains. She was screaming hysterically, although there didn’t seem to be much happening. FM knew exactly what was going on, “She can feel a nest of spiders hatching in her stomach. She will begin to feel hundreds crawling up her throat and out of her mouth. It will not be long before she can feel the tickling and biting sensations all over her body as they create a silky cocoon around her. She will be their daily feast for quite a while. You see Stephen, that is her worst nightmare. Hell is very personal, it will be whatever you fear the most.”
From the point we stood we could still see the torturous scene of the guerrilla leader’s hell.
“Does that one look familiar?” asked FM. He was pointing to a figure that looked like an angel; it had wings that were white but dirtied by the environment. As it turned I could see piercing blue eyes like laser beams. It looked in our direction and held a stare, as if it knew we were there, before turning back to supervise the torture.
“It’s me isn’t it? That is the real me? Satan is still in Hell, even though he is planning to defect.” If I was in the physical I would have been sick.
“Stephen is only a small part of the spirit of Satan. Once he has proven himself through your work we can destroy evil. It is easier to bring Hell down if we have help from within.”
“Explain again FM?” I asked, struggling to keep my concentration.
“Think of blowing up a tower block. If the explosives are placed on the outside it will damage the side facing it. If you placed the same amount of explosives at the centre of the ground floor it will bring the whole lot down. Now do you understand?” This time I did understand and nodded.
We made our way out of Hell, again completely unchallenged.
“You know what you must do now Stephen. Go and do it, for you and your family’s sake. Goodnight.” Lesson well and truly learned I returned to the sleeping physical body.
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