A trip to the underworld

An unexpected visit to bizarro world

After a spot of geopolitics, it is time to return to the realm of spirituality, with a personal anecdote. In previous posts I wrote about ancient cosmology and the concept of spiritual bodies and spiritual worlds. Then I moved on to explore and examine the subtle architecture of the human body and soul .

It is now time to regal you with some personal stories of direct experience with spiritual realms. This may be a bit dark, so be warned, proceed with caution and at your own risk. I am taking every precaution to protect you from negative influences that can come with delving into this topic, but there never are any guarantees when it comes to this area of discussion.

I went through a spiritual awakening of sorts from 2010 onwards, culminating in December 2012, when I experienced mystical union and saw a vision of the divine.

The next year, in 2013, I was still grappling with what all that meant. I started out as a dyed-in-the-wool materialist and atheist, despite my childhood upbringing in the Catholic faith, which I abandoned later in life. I found the idea of God preposterous and in fact I was probably an antitheist at that point. I did have an interest in Hinduism, having spent some of my childhood in India and reading most of the central works of that philosophical and religious tradition, but it was more of a scholarly curiosity than any genuine faith in the truth of those teachings.

Partly as a result of the Catholic child abuse scandal in Ireland, when I lived there in the 2000s and later through reading authors like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens, I abandoned God altogether and was still searching for something to replace the God-shaped hole in my heart.

I had a problem though. I felt an emptiness there, not unlike heartbreak, of the sort one experiences when losing a beloved. I was also aware, though could not prove, that there was a spiritual side to life, something all of us know deep down, no matter what we convince our rational minds to think.

I started a meditative practice at age 13, which I continued on and off for nearly 20 years, before unexpectedly experiencing an intense spiritual awakening which also brought with it some extranormal phenomena, that I had never experienced or even though possible beforehand. I had visions of the divine, received messages, some of which were prophetic, had lucid dreams about humanity’s future, experienced episodes of what I can only describe as past and future lives, developed spontaneous hands-on-healing abilities, enhanced empathic, almost telepathic abilities and so on.

I was largely self-taught on the path of meditation, though I attended hatha yoga classes as a teenager, where I learnt the basics of correct breathing and posture as well. Due to the fact, that I was largely self-taught, I did not know, that one is supposed to take precautions, when meditating or engaging in any sort of spiritual practice, especially when alone. Though I had visions of the divine and had exited my body on several occasions, I was naïve to the dangers the spiritual realm can hold and did not take proper protective measures.

I noticed a different energy to what I had previously experienced, as pure divine light, that had started to visit me, usually when I was in meditation. I did not pay much attention to it at first, but it felt like some sort of disembodied entity that wanted to communicate with me. Its energy was not the pure light of God, that I have seen before, rather it felt like it was perhaps made of fire, or in any case a sort of orange-reddish glowing spiritual light. When around me, it attempted to make contact and by then, I had developed a very rudimentary ability to communicate with disembodied beings, which at that time was very ineffective, mostly involving the exchange of a few words and images, usually highly symbolic. Due to this, I cannot be entirely certain what the entity wanted from me and what it had actually tried to communicate, I had to infer it mostly through symbolic images and a few words that were flashed in my mind’s eye. I have some ideas, mostly in hindsight, but there’s a high degree of uncertainty around it.

So, the entity in question tried to connect to me and was semi-successful. I was curious, as I had heard of the idea of spirit guides before and I thought it may be one of those. The entity certainly presented itself as benevolent and wanting to help and guide me. Since I saw no indications to the contrary, I accepted that its intentions were genuine and had a few halting conversations with it (as I later found out, actually a him).

I found out its name, one that I may have come across before, but wasn’t that familiar with. This was done by flashing the name written down in my mind’s eye, like a thought bubble, you see in cartoons. I should have been more careful and sent the uninvited visitor away, but I was far too curious and being a recovering antitheist at the time, I did not take the threat of non-physical entities, that might wish one harm, seriously.

I’m not going to repeat the entity’s name here, for your protection, but subsequent research has revealed it to be prominent in the apocryphal Book of Enoch, where it is classified as a Watcher.

One sunny day, I was sitting cross-legged on the floor of my London apartment, in Wapping, near the river Thames, deep in meditation. Once again, I felt the entity approaching and surrounding me with its energy, trying to connect to me to communicate. It was trying to tell me something, but I wasn’t getting it, so both of us grew frustrated.

What happened next, I will try to describe exactly as I experienced it, with minimal interpretation, as I cannot be entirely certain whether I understood the situation in its proper context.

In no time at all, I found myself outside my body and in another realm, far away from London, or, it seemed, the earth, or at least its surface. I had an NDE before, so could compare this out-of-body experience to that. It was exactly the same in almost every sense, except I wasn’t tethered to my body, floating above it, rather I was clearly far away, in another realm altogether. Yet, I experienced the same floating sensation, being weightless like a balloon and struggling to turn around, by flailing my arms and legs. I was looking at the walls of a cave, dimly lit, though I could not be sure, where the light was coming from. I sensed, that somebody was looking at me from behind. So, by flailing my arms and legs, I slowly managed to turn around and see who was looking at me from the other side.

What I saw, was completely unexpected and surprised me a great deal, though I experienced no fear.

Sitting slightly below me (I was still floating mid-air), cross-legged, was a being neither human, nor beast, a chimera so to speak. It had a humanoid body, was rather leanly built, but with a healthy amount of muscle. It had brown fur, like a goat, no wings that I could discern from my vantage point, a body that was basically that of a human, with the exception of the fur, including human hands and the head of a goat, with long, straight horns. I could not see its feet, or at least I did not focus on that specifically. Its eyes were very intelligent and wholly human. He was very clearly a male of his species and I inferred that this must be what his species looks like, at least in the astral realm, where they dwell. The cave he was in, was rather large and I recall seeing him sitting on a rock ledge, with some animal skin underneath for comfort. From my vantage point, I could not judge his size exactly, but he did not look significantly larger, than I was in that astral form, floating slightly above him and a few metres back. My impression was, that this was earth, deep underground, but also in another dimension, or some sort of parallel realm. I identify it with the mythological underworld I wrote about in the posts referenced at the beginning of this piece.

The being in question did not appear malevolent. He looked at me inquisitively, with a slight smirk. My impression was, that he was surprised and a little bit impressed, that I found my way to his realm and was now looking at him in his true form. A curious thing, that I noticed, is that he always blinked at exactly the same time I did, in my astral form. This led me to infer, that we were telepathically and energetically connected in some manner. I also suspected, that he may have tried to take control of me, but was unsuccessful and his frustration was part of the reason I found myself in his underworld lair. I cannot say for sure, whether he pulled me out of my body intentionally, whether it was an accident, whether I was the cause of this event, or whether it was a combination of these factors.

In any case, neither of us said a thing and the meeting was a bit awkward. His facial expression betrayed a slight sheepishness, as if he was found out in some manner. Having no further use for me, he sent me back to my realm, either by thinking about it, or through a waving gesture, a detail I cannot recall exactly now. Almost immediately, I found myself back in my London apartment, sitting cross-legged on the floor, rather confused and bewildered.

Since I knew his name and had a few inadequate conversations with him, I went into research mode. I quickly discovered references to him and his species all over the place (sorry for not divulging the name, this is for your protection, but it can easily be found with a modicum of research). Apparently a species of goat-demons has been reported to have lived in the deserts of Israel since ancient times. They were spotted by many travellers there and people of all religious backgrounds believed in their existence matter-of-factly. I searched for images of the entity in question and you guessed it, he was mostly depicted as having the head of a goat, or at least goat-horns in drawing and carvings from centuries, even millennia ago. References to him were plentiful in the writings of the three Abrahamic faiths.

I also discovered something dark and sinister about him. I cannot state this with 100 percent certainty, but I have inferred it from his communications with me, research I have done on his history and hints from others who may have encountered such entities or have the spiritual sight to see clearly, behind the veil of illusions that cloud our judgement. Every year, a ritual is performed in Israel, by Jewish elders, where a goat is chosen, to represent him. In this ritual, the elders transfer all the sins (karma in the Hindu framework) of the Jewish people to this entity, which is something that hurts and enrages him greatly. It’s called the scapegoat ritual and is very ancient. Due to this, he is a sworn enemy of the Jewish people and is constantly recruiting people to help destroy them. He has not said so, but I still strongly suspect, that he is behind worldwide anti-Semitism and has heavily influenced events prior and during WW2 and is still doing so today.

It is said, that top Nazis, especially Hitler himself, were in contact with such entities, especially through the occult Thule society. It has long been rumoured that Hitler was an ordinary man, before he was introduced to a powerful entity, like the one I met, through an occult ritual. There is of course no way to verify any of this, but it would explain so much. The Jews, being the chosen people, would of course be the prime target of any entity or group, that sees the Judeo-Christian God as their prime enemy. In my research, following this incident, I came across a particular group in the United States, that present themselves as occultist, but behind the scenes, their “spiritual” movement is just a front for their Neo-Nazi outfit. I suspect, that wherever you find Jew-hatred, whether on the far-right, or today, increasingly on the far-left, this group of entities, that I will refer to as the Watchers, for lack of a better term, are behind it.

This goes back to the theme of my two earlier spiritual essays on this substack, that there are entire realms out there, far vaster than our own, which influence events in our own realm in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend. I’m not going to speculate any further on what spiritual force or group is behind various events, movements, people, parties, countries, institutions, etc… That is something that cannot be proven in any case, so you will have to use your own discernment, intuition and spiritual sight and come to your own conclusions.

That being said, all of us suspect, that there is something sinister behind world events and certain trends, movements, laws, people and so on. There are players behind the scenes, who must manipulate events from the unseen, this is a belief, that goes back to ancient times. Our ancestors believed, that powerful, invisible beings were behind the fate of each individual, that the gods, as they called them, were the weavers of fate and that our lives on this earth were part of a lattice or matrix, which was woven by these gods, according to their own grand design or whims. Magic, and later religion, astrology and many other spiritual arts or technologies, as I prefer to call them, arose out of the desire to apply to the gods to change the fate of mortals. People hoped that through prayer, sacrifice, rituals and so on, they can earn the favour of gods and other spiritual beings, therefore changing the course of their lives and societies.

If you look at the oldest cave paintings, such as the ones in Lascaux, France (look at them in a 3D theatre if you can, as they are too fragile to be visited in person), you will notice certain patterns.

What you see here is the beginnings of magic and later, religion. Cavemen wanted meat to feed their tribe. By painting their desired outcome, a successful hunt with all the animals that they wanted to eat, they practiced the earliest form of magic, ritual and prayer, depending on how you look at it. We cannot confirm this with any certainty, but no doubt they also practiced some sort of magic or religious ritual, perhaps dancing around the fire, singing, chanting, possibly consuming psychedelic plants, to put them into a trance state. This is probably also how they came into contact with entities, like the one I saw, and drawings of various underworld entities with animalistic features are very ancient, going back to the beginning of our history.

For instance, the famous Sumerian demon, that is the “protagonist” of the exorcist movie, was depicted as a vaguely humanoid figure, with dog-like features, fangs and claws. If you thought that the Xenomorphs of the Alien movie franchise were a modern invention, you’d be wrong. The Epic of Gilgamesh tells the story of the monstrous creature Humbaba, who had grotesque features and acid for blood. Wherever you go in the world, since humans could draw and tell stories, they spoke of and painted bizarre (to us) creatures, with vaguely humanoid features, interspersed with animal characteristics, such as wings, fangs, horns, claws, talons and hoofs. In most of these stories and depictions, these creatures are said to live in another realm, usually underground.

For instance, my favourite Hungarian children’s story, growing up, was Fehérlófia (son of the white mare), which tells the story of a wondrous child, born of a white mare. Hungarian fairytales are usually set in Africa, as they talk about kingdoms that are across the Red Sea (Óperenciás Tenger in the stories) and beyond the glass mountain (most probably the Great Pyramid of Giza, when it was still covered in limestone, so it must have looked like a glass mountain to the outside observer):

These stories are told from the vantage point of a people that lived in the middle east, most probably Mesopotamia or Iran. There was in fact a group of Hungarians, called the Savard Magyars, who lived in today’s Northwestern Iran, until the middle ages, but I digress.

In Son of the White Mare, the eponymous protagonist travels to the underworld through an opening, where he is lowered down on a basket through a giant hole, miles deep. The underworld contains three circles, each deeper underground than the previous one, containing a wondrous kingdom, ruled over by a dragon. I won’t spoil the ending, in case you want to read it or watch the animated version, which is one of the all-time masterpieces of world cinema, a truly mindblowing, psychedelic experience:

Son of the White Mare movie

The point being, that such stories appear in every culture and are pretty consistent. Vast, wondrous underworld realms, kingdoms, with all sorts of creatures, often in the form of dragons, demons or devils.

It is my contention, that the earliest forms of religion probably attempted to communicate with and influence such beings.

Ancient Vedic Hindus, who worshipped Indo-European gods, roughly analogous to those of the ancient Greeks (Zeus / Deus being Indra for instance), consumed a psychedelic plant called Soma to get them into an altered state of consciousness and enable communication with the Devas. Shamanic practitioners took trips into the spirit world, for similar reasons. In his new book, Magicians of the Gods , author Graham Hancock recounts the story of the Aztecs and how Moctezuma’s empire was eventually toppled by the Spaniards and their native allies. Apparently Moctezuma took Ayahuasca on a regular basis, to communicate with the “gods” of Aztec religion. These gods only ever wanted one thing, human sacrifice, the more, the better. As the Spaniards were approaching the capital and it became apparent he was losing the war, the gods instructed him to sacrifice even more people, to ensure his victory. Of course it was all a lie and the entities he was in contact with, were lying to him, they had no real power to effect events in the real world.

By the way, I am in no way saying, that all entities of the spirit world, or gods, deities, etc… are evil, far from it, in fact. There is in fact a way to tell apart benevolent beings, who have humanity’s well-being at heart, from those that are malevolent, but this is a topic for a later date.

I have deliberately avoided mentioning the names and inserting depictions of beings that I believe to be malevolent, to avoid bringing their energy into this post, a wise precaution, which I will explain shortly.

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I’m sure if you’ve read so far, you have many questions and doubts, as I had, at the time. I would like to pre-emptively answer a few of those.

A few possible explanations for this event, that went through my mind over the years:

• Was I hallucinating?

  Always a possibility with an experience like this, when no one else was around. However, hallucinations, especially when schizophrenia or a psychotic break is involved are very different. The person is still in the same space they were, but they may hear voices (which I did not), or see their environment attack them in some manner, with everything becoming sinister, such as walls closing in. They will also see people who are simply not there, usually repeatedly or even constantly. I, on the other hand, only saw this being once and I was not in the room or even realm where my body was located at the time. I’ve had an NDE and a number of OBE experiences before and after, so I can tell the difference between a hallucination and being actually outside my body. The latter is so distinctive that you really can’t mistake it for anything else. I was also fully lucid before, after and during this event, experienced no fear, terror or agitation whatsoever. Which brings me to the next point.

• Did anyone else witness what I had?

  Not directly and not at the time. However, years later, I spoke to a friend about this. We were sitting by a lake in a garden, late at night. He is a deeply religious orthodox man from Greece, who has seen many extraordinary things himself. He encountered what he believes to be an angel once, on one of Greece’s many holy mountains. He also died in a motorcycle accident, after being brought to life by paramedics, he was able to see spirits all the time and all over the place. In his words, they are everywhere and basically surround us, existing in a parallel dimension or plane of existence, which is very close to ours, but remains invisible to the vast majority of people. When I recounted my story to him, I made the mistake of mentioning the entity’s name to him. He grew annoyed instantly and told me I shouldn’t have done that. Then he looked around and asked me:

  • Can you see them?

  • No - I said. But something weird’s going on, I suddenly have a splitting headache and have a strange feeling in me, which I can only describe as oppression.

  • You shouldn’t have said his name - he said. They’re all around us and we are now under spiritual attack.

  It only lasted a few minutes, but I got the message, I never said his name again.

• Did anyone witness or interact with similar beings or this particular one, like I have?

  Too many to mention. I mean, it’s literally all over the place. During my research, I even encountered a British TV-show, where the entity in question was played by a now very famous Hollywood actor. He was presented as some sort of invisible friend, that only this one girl could see.

  I would highlight the case of Tracy Twyman here, now sadly deceased, but in her time she was perhaps the best source on the realities of the occult. She was an occultist, in contact with an entity who looked very much like the one I saw, though his name is safe to mention here, I believe, as it has become such common parlance (Baphomet). Eventually she realised, that the entity was deceiving her and was in fact trying to get her to establish some sort of neo- knights templar like organisation, which has apparently taken off and is still popular after her passing. If you ever want to understand the true nature of the occult, read her books. She also explains how the current financial system is based on Babylonian money magic. Excellent stuff.

• Any other explanations to consider?

  I’ve only told a few people about this encounter, but one that frequently pops up, is that I have merely encountered my shadow self, a sort of dark version of myself, personified by that entity. An intriguing possibility, for sure, which actually makes some sense if you apply the principles of non-dualism (everything is an extension of your own Self, nothing exists outside of you, we are all fundamentally different versions of the same, single consciousness). However, whilst that makes sense philosophically, the events I described above with my Greek Orthodox friend would indicate that this is an insufficient explanation.

• What conclusions can we draw from this encounter and its aftermath?

  As hinted at in my introductory posts on this substack, there is a vast, spiritual realm, that is outside of our own, but also very close to it, perhaps overlaying it or intersecting it in some manner, most probably due to its higher-dimensional nature. It’s easiest to imagine these points of intersection, if we bring it down to our own 3-dimensional reality (time, the fourth dimension is not in our control, we are merely observers of it, but cannot move along it freely). Imagine if we discovered a two-dimensional universe, that intersects our own. We could see it, but the beings inhabiting it couldn’t see us, except if we found a way to “reach into it” and manipulate it, in a manner of speaking. From our higher dimensional perspective, we could achieve miracles. Whilst they could only move about in a straight line and in a given direction, we could jump from point to point in their reality, by reaching in at a given location, pulling out and reaching in again at a completely different one. To the 2D beings seeing this, it would appear that we can just appear and disappear at will, whenever and wherever we want. A far more detailed explanation is given by physicist Michio Kaku in his books on String Theory. Suffice to say, the seemingly miraculous nature of higher-dimensional beings is completely in line with modern physics. It also provides an explanation for UAPs, cryptids, spirits and various other extranormal phenomena.

  Note: Michio Kaku explains it better in this article.

  In closing, I must emphasize here, that this post focussed on only a single encounter with a dark, or what I would call a “self-serving” entity, in order to draw conclusions from it. The entity in question attempted to “seduce” me a few more times with what I quickly realised, were lies and internal contradictions. I learned how to protect against him and eventually sent him away for good, using a meditative technique of generating internal fire or Tummo, as the Tibetans call it and building a protective shield around myself. I haven’t been bothered by any entities since as they probably look for weaker prey. It has in fact been a positive overall, as it strengthened my faith in the spiritual dimension of life and in divine providence and protection. We all have immense spiritual power and agency at our disposal. Perhaps the most important lesson I learnt is never to fear anything. In the place where fear should be, I instead have faith in a higher power, my own agency and competence, in the spiritual sense. If you know anything about predators, they never bother with the strong and confident. They prey on the weak and vulnerable. So, now I see it as my task or even mission to warn others and help them realise their own potential.

If you have faith in God, you know what I’m talking about. If you have ever prayed with conviction, if you have ever surrendered your own fragile ego to God, you know about the power that comes with it. No doubt, you have felt the spirit of God enter you, giving you agency, competence, confidence, strength and unshakable faith. Such encounters are meant to test and make us stronger. We are never given more than we can handle and all of this has a purpose. As God has given us free will, there must necessarily be evil in this world, for many seek to go against their divine nature and turn to darkness, in service of their own selves, instead.

What you can learn from that is simply this:

• We are never alone. God is always with us and his immense power is always given to us freely. All we have to do is ask and surrender to divine will.

• Whilst there are all sorts of spiritual beings, ranging from malevolent to benevolent, the only power they have over us is what we give to them. Ultimately, we all have agency.

• The vastness of the spiritual realm and the dangers that lurk within are no reason to fear it. The rainforest or the savannah may carry many dangers, especially in the form of predators, but they all have their purpose and assigned role, in the grand scheme of things. Rather than avoiding going outside altogether, you should instead remove your ignorance and learn how to avoid danger and protect yourself.

• Benevolent higher beings are always around to guide and protect you. Pray to them and they will show themselves in various subtle ways, or even directly, through a visitation.

• Those that are good or benevolent are always more plentiful than those that are bad or malevolent. This is simply due to the predator-prey dynamic. Predators need plenty of prey to sustain themselves, therefore they can never be as plentiful as those they prey upon.

• The higher beings I speak of, whether good, bad or neutral (and I understand that these terms are only really valid from our limited perspective, but I am simplifying for brevity’s sake) have been around a long time, much longer than us and they have been, are and always will be manipulating events from the unseen. We have got to get used to this idea and learn to live with it.

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  I would like to emphasize, that my interaction with spiritual or higher beings, has overwhelmingly been positive and helpful to my own development, I detailed this single, brief episode of perhaps moderate danger (I do not think I was ever in any real danger, due to divine protection and the law of free will, a topic for another day), as a warning and because it tells us so much about the world of the unseen, the beings that inhabit it, their motivations and their methods of manipulation, or influence in this realm.

  The Denizens of Heaven are nothing like this, they are beings of pure light, full of love, compassion and benevolence. The astral realm I briefly visited is one very close to our own, therefore the beings inhabiting it are somewhat similar to us, in that they are a mix of all sorts, with plenty that are self-serving and have their own agenda. I’m not a fan of fear-mongering. Take proper protective measures, of course and have your wits about you, but also do not allow yourself to be ruled by fear of the unknown and the unseen.

  Movies, TV-shows, popular media, all attempt to scare us and often present an unrealistic picture of what lies beyond the veil. I would argue, that almost everything that is hitherto undiscovered to science and mainstream society in general, lies in the beyond, in a realm they can’t access, but is all the more real for it, much more so than our own realm in fact, because it is far more permanent, less affected by the ravages of time and far more expansive in terms of the number of dimensions it contains, a possibly infinite number, in my view. Our world in contrast, with its three and a half dimensions at best, is tiny and extremely limited, essentially little more than a holographic simulation we enter for brief periods, from the vantage point of eternity.