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| A strange but true confession as a fiction writer about my passion for ancient Egypt ... |
I’d never seen my lifelong pursuit of ancient Egypt as inviting an encounter with unseen forces... and yet...
I write a series of novels about a renegade Egyptologist, Anson Hunter, who believes in dangers from the ancient past.
And perhaps it’s no wonder I identify so strongly with him and his 'self-destructive’ theories that make him an outsider in his profession.
On two separate occasions in my life I’ve experienced the shattering impact of a mysterium tremendum and it’s not something that I can easily bring myself to admit.
The episodes were embarrassingly spiritualist in nature. (Like my hero Anson Hunter, I wrestle with a faith. We both call ourselves Anglicans, but God probably wouldn't agree.)
These events occurred, not in one of my many visits to Egypt, nor in a tomb or temple, but while asleep in my bed at home.
I had surfaced from deep sleep to feel my body shaking violently as something descended onto my back and slammed me to the mattress.
The presence paralysed me, pinning me down, like the crushing effects of an anaesthetic.
It welded itself to my spine and to the back of my head like an alien predator in a movie. It felt like a shadow, even though I could not see it. Whatever it was, it did not speak, yet it seemed to be clinging to the back of my brain where it waited and watched as patiently as a parasite.
I could not cry out nor could I break its frightening, determined hold. Something, I knew, was trying to take over me.
What was this terrifying ambush?
Night paralysis?
Or was it the attack of some elemental?
Thoughts of Egypt came into my mind and I wondered - has my obsession opened the door to this? I’ve given years to the study of Egypt’s mystery, and am I now being asked to give more, my very being?
How could I shake myself free when every muscle lay paralysed?
I didn’t know where to go to escape it.
I tried to will the paralysis away with the power of my mind, hoping to break its hold with the force of concentration. I was cold and yet sweated.
It would not move and neither could I move. Its breath lay on my neck and remained there.
It’s watching my struggle, I thought. No worse, smiling, demon-like.
Prayer. There was nothing else. I fled to the refuge of an uncertain faith. Christ, help me, I prayed. This, and only this, broke the hold. The shadow finally relaxed its clasp and let go of me, not immediately, but after some moments of thought. It dissolved away. I had passed some kind of test.
Yet it happened again, ten years later, A second attack?
Both events left me feeling profoundly shaken and puzzled as well as embarrassed and tinged with guilt. I’d never seen my pursuit of ancient Egypt as an encounter with evil but now I was forced to consider the possibility that some element of it could be hostile to my life and to my wellbeing and might always be waiting.
