Mystical Memoirs; Part 1

I started thinking this morning about the events and rational that compelled me to concern myself with the marriage between mysticism and reason. Upon retrospect, I realize that my task is an attempt to eradicate an internal conflict, present from childhood, rooted, at least, in my first memories.

Two specific memories serve a starting point. Both take place about the same time, and the same place: at night---between the ages of four and six, and in my bedroom on 6th Street in Grove.

The first experience begins when I am starting to sleep, on the top bunkbed, when I feel like a brick falls from the cieling and hits me in the head. At once, I feel dizzy and the room starts to spin , and I become paralyzed until the motion of my environment ceases. The second event, this time on the bottom bunk, I awaken from a dream, but can't move. I look towards the foot of the bed, and there is a black figure with blue eyes holding a saw. Laughing, he starts to cut my ankles. I am startled by my own crying and yelling, then the figure disappears.These two events implanted in me an awareness for inexplicable experiences. Since childhood, many similar instances occured, mostly with entites sinister in nature.

Like most stricken by fear, I saught council with the highest authority on spiritual (mental)matters that I knew. In my case, such council was my grandmother, one who I held dear to heart, and the wife of my grandfather, the pastor of my local church. At age five or so, I had an awe for my grandfather, but my grandma was my friend, so I went to her first.

Of course, she quickened with righteous fury and began to rebuke the devil, and all demonic activities, from my resting place---in the name of Jesus. Now, to be honest, my grandmother's response to my situation formed a template for problem solving; whether the problem be mundane or extramundane, her's was the satifactory approach---at least until the tail end of my prepubescent years. There, around the ages of 9-12, reason began to temper my maddening mysticism.