The Eyes of an Autistic Yogi

By Nathan Fox and John Charles Petersen MD

The Eyes of an Autistic Yogi details one man’s understanding of spirituality and life. Even so, spirituality is only one of a plethora of aspects of author Nathan Fox’s life. Aside from his spiritual quest as a Yogi, Nathan is a musician, writer, and husband. He also has Asperger’s Syndrome, a high-functioning form of autism.

Nathan first realized that his perception was skewed as a child, and he remained aware and even overwhelmed as he continued to develop. It was not until a moment of spiritual awakening on the side of the highway in Indianapolis, Indiana, that he finally transcended the limitations of his diagnosis; for the first time in his life, he saw the world for its beauty and simplicity. Sometime later, as the vision faded, Nathan knew he needed the experience again. He also knew he must share his insight with the world.

Nathan reminds us of our own individuality. For now, we live in a strange world with even stranger people. We call this earth, and it is our home. Remembering our home, we do not seem that strange after all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469737089

Nathan Fox

Nathan H. Fox is a writer, musician, mountaineer, and husband. As a child, Nathan was a musician and performed in over two hundred musical groups. A person with Asperger’s Syndrome, Nathan underwent what he calls a profound spiritual experience. He currently lives with his wife, Amanda, in Lyons, Colorado.

Book preview

The Eyes of an

Autistic Yogi

NATHAN H. FOX

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THE EYES OF AN AUTISTIC YOGI

Copyright © 2012 Nathan H. Fox.

Foreword by: John Charles Peterson, MD

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4697-3707-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-3709-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-3708-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012900852

iUniverse rev. date: 01/19/2021

This book is

dedicated to my Family,

Sifu Daniel Eckart, and the

World’s many Spiritual Teachers

And seekers.

About the Author

On March 27, 1985 Nathan H. Fox was born to Daniel J. and Carol A. Fox. As a child, he performed music throughout the Midwest appearing with over 200 music groups. A person with Asperger’s Syndrome, Nathan underwent what he calls, a profound spiritual experience. Today, Nathan is a writer, musician, mountaineer, and husband. He lives with his wife Amanda in Lyons, Colorado.

CONTENTS

Preface

Foreword

Introduction

Section 1 :The Eyes

Chapter 1 :   The Autistic

o   Ascent

o   Grandpa and Grandma Fox: Conspiracy and Reality Theory

o   Journey into a Daydream

o   Not Doing

o   The Power of Quirk

o   Caring and Hostility

Chapter 2 :   Connections

o   Talent Show

o   Symptoms and Signs: Early and Later

o   Alexander Scriabin and the Occult-Autism Connection

o   The Occult Lights

o   The Mystical Chord

o   The Savants

o   A Glimpse into an Autistic Thought Process: For Autistic-Eyes Only!

Chapter 3 :   Eternity

o   Bonding

o   Awakening

o   Now

Chapter 4 :   America The Beautiful

o   The Hotel in Maryland

o   The Capital

o   Dupont Station and Onward

o   No Exit

o   The March Starts

o   The Recruiting Station

Section 2 : The Yogi

Chapter 5 :   Lady of the Nectar

o   The Elusive Doctor and Master Zhi Gang Sha

o   Amritam Endgame

Chapter 6 :   Truth is a Pathless Land

o   Narrowing the View

o   The Occult Sciences are to New Age Thought as a 25-disc Star-Trek Series Box Set is to 10 Minutes of Understanding Nature

o   Secret Instruments: The Yogis and the Occult

o   The Psychic Gifts

Chapter 7 :   The Cult of Nude Girls and The Church of the Ineffable Light

o   Cult Synopsis Number One: The Cult of Nude Girls

o   Literature for the Cult of Nude Girls

o   Cult Synopsis Number Two: The Church of The Ineffable Light

o   The Ledger

o   The Mathematics of Violation

Chapter 8 :   The Cult of Climbing

o   Lumpy Ridge

Chapter 9 :   Alien at the Ashram

o   Teachers Teaching

Section 3 :   Dimensions in Meditation

Chapter 10 :   Method and Measurement

o   Salt

o   Confirmation and Mysticism: Phenomenology of Meditation

o   Chinese Death

o   Mother Serpent

o   Kundalini Esoterica: Entry 1: August 26th, 2008:

o   Kundalini Esoterica: Entry 2: August 27th, 2008

o   The Accidental Meditation

o   Trust Me, I’m a Doctor

Chapter 11 :   Secret Yoga

o   Natural Measurement

o   Mind of the Spirit

o   Creative Occultism

o   The Five Primary Jhanas

o   Measurement and Growth

o   Charisma Criminals

o   The Way of Play

Chapter 12 :   The Consciousness of Meditation

o   Language and Belief

Chapter 13 :   The Four Requisite Meditations

o   Disclaimer Before Proceeding

o   Awareness of the Breathing

o   Awareness of the Body

o   The Witnessing Presence

o   Gender Awareness

o   Summary of the Four Requisite Meditations:

Chapter 14 :   The Occult Meditations

o   One-Point Object Meditation

o   The Internal and External Gazes

o   The Psychic Anatomy

o   Levitation

o   Communicating with the Dead

o   Astral Projection

Chapter 15 :   The Lesser Occult Meditations

o   Telekinesis

o   Telepathy

o   Clairvoyance and Remote Viewing

Chapter 16 :   Completing the Puzzle

o   Make-Your-Own Meditations

Chapter 17 :   Meditations for My Wife

o   Amanda Fox’s Special Notes Linking Her With: Nathan Fox

o   The Link Note

o   Uplifting

o   Buddhist Stuff for Amanda, Since You Seemed To Like It, And Since I Know A Lot About It:

o   A Picture of Hannah Montana with Nipple-Rings and Devil-Horns, Charlie-Manson Forehead ‘X,’ Devil-Tail, and Large Nose Ring Reads:

Chapter 18 :   Supplemental Meditation Materials

o   Post-Meditation Journaling

o   Procedures for Recording Meditative Results

o   Procedures for Interpreting Meditative Results

o   Organizing Results and Interpretations

o   Meeting and Talking with Other People

o   Hermetic Philosophy

o   The Principal of All-Mind

o   The Principal of Rhythm

o   The Principal of Vibration

o   The Principal of Correspondence

o   The Principal of Polarity

o   The Principal of Cause and Effect

o   The Principal of Gender

o   Summary of Hermetic Philosophy

Afterward: The Future of Occult Writing

Bibliography

Preface

On the side of a highway in Indianapolis, I saw into another world. There, alone in my car I was granted a rare opportunity: to see infinity. And it happened: I took it.

All mental conflict stopped. No internal dialogue about my life situation continued. My emotions exploded into a kaleidoscope of the beyond. My senses alert, I continued. But the ‘I’ once known had collapsed. There was nothing left to consider: ‘who am I’ or ‘what was my purpose,’ did not come to me.

In the parking lot where I rested was the simplicity of the sages. Their works had expounded upon what was happening to me. But who they were or what they talked about was obliterated. I was born into the beautiful world I had been stopping myself from seeing, knowing. My body was translucent, my vision clear. There, amidst the bustling of rush-hour traffic, I had become one.

Gathering the strength to reach my head toward the sky, the soft blue and sun behind it, my being was drawn into space. But I was here. I was sitting, looking up with my head. And I heard a question: Who knows this?

My eyes seemed original to me. And the sky was drawing my vision further into space. ‘As clear as day’ took on a new meaning: this day was clear. I had seen it up to this point, daily. Now, I knew this moment was no longer a tragedy. There were no names left for me to use in describing this, my life. My other senses were now overcome. There was just this moment. And it was eternal.

This was all so overwhelming; joy took hold of my flesh. Nothing further needing to be addressed all reasoning had ceased. Then, there was the light.

Radiance surrounded me. Every object, near or far, seemed to no longer entrance me. I could not name a thing. I could no longer label this moment as an experience, let alone mine. I knew just then my life would change forever.

As the light was too brilliant, I closed my eyes. A part of me called out to stop this; I thought this too much to handle. Then I heard again: Who knows this? Opening my eyelids, my head was fixed to the sky. I could feel the tears pouring from my face. But I was not sad. And so, I laughed.

I heard the sound of my head as it vibrated, the tones ringing through my whole body. The skin across my face had stretched, my frame aching to fulfill the breadth of this vision, to contain it. At once all senses as separate had vanished. There in my car seat, I saw into eternity.

The light from the sun warmed the car. I could feel this. To my right was a well-pruned tree, its roots reaching into the earth with an unnamable depth. But my head had not moved: I was looking from within.

I saw the birth of stars, the physical ones we call suns. Distance was no longer a limit. Time had vanished. And I knew this. Within, I saw the melody of the cosmos, the forces joining and ceasing, the procession unending. The feeling gathered further, now within and without together, joined as one. I was one. I was present. And this was the end to my search. However, this was also the beginning of my life. But was it mine to begin? I had many questions now: 45 minutes later, enormity of this vision had ceased. I longed for it again. And now I wanted to share this with the world.

Foreword

By: John Charles Peterson, MD

As a physician and keyboard player I have always been interested in eccentric artists and musicians. My young friend, bass and mandolin player, Nathan Fox, certainly fits the bill. I met him at my nightclub, Doc’s Music Hall, in downtown Muncie, Indiana. He was in his early twenties, but looked 10 years younger. His musicianship while playing his fretless electric bass was something to behold. Nathan’s playing was brilliant, somewhere between Jaco Pastorius, the fusion jazz bassist for Weather Report, and Glen Gould, the Canadian pianist known for his interpretations of Bach. During breaks he would often perform a Bach invention on his bass.

He was fascinating. Nathan knew a significant portion of the rock and jazz repertoire and seemed to have a perfect sense of pitch and musical structure. But he had a certain level of sensory defensiveness in terms of sound; the volume of his ensemble work needed to be just so. His sharp intellect, quirky wit and charismatic personality attracted a following of young musicians and artists but he could become shy and socially awkward. But sometimes he made inappropriate verbal responses to mundane questions. It also seemed hard for him to maintain direct eye contact. These things could scare people away. Many musicians who were not able to keep up with him considered him arrogant, especially when he offered them his honest opinions about their musical contributions. They didn’t seem to understand that he just wanted to sound good and that they didn’t need to take it so personally.

I wondered why he wasn’t in school working toward his PhD in performance or teaching or making a musical name for himself in New York City or Nashville. I invited him to play with me and other jazz players on Thursday nights at the club. It was fun. He enjoyed himself and appreciated the musical space we gave each other. He put up with my rudimentary interpretations of jazz standards.

I got a kick out of his playing, a little busy but always creative and melodic. And I enjoyed his quirkiness. One night with some trepidation he announced into the microphone that it was Autism Awareness Week. This confirmed my suspicions. Nathan has Asperger’s Syndrome, one of the autism spectrum disorders. No wonder there were obstacles in his path to professional success, I thought.

He sought refuge in playing his electric bass and reading Buddhist literature. This led to experimenting with techniques from the Far East to develop higher states of consciousness. This book eloquently describes some of his spiritual adventures and the accompanying physical, mental and spiritual techniques, with an occasional emphasis on pranayama, breathing techniques. His interest in Eastern philosophy and techniques dovetailed beautifully with my 40-year interest in the Vedic tradition of India, specifically Ayurveda, which my wife and I are known for having brought to the attention of the Western Medical Community.

I told Nathan after a gig how much I appreciated the mental and emotional gymnastics he goes through in order to come out publicly and perform. I knew he appreciated my understanding. A bond was formed, and I invited him to go with me to Ann Arbor, Michigan, for a concert with pianist Chick Corea, vocalist Bobby McFerrin and percussionist Jack DeJohnette—jazz artists we both loved and respected. And on the car ride to the concert Nathan shared stories about his childhood: his unsuccessful attempts to fit in with family, school and friends.

As we got closer to our concert a phone call from my sister in Ann Arbor interrupted our conversation. She asked if we would be interested in attending a knowledge-session with the Dalai Lama—the next morning. We were momentarily speechless before accepting the invitation. I realized the trip to Michigan was about Nathan. To me he was meant to meet the Dalai Lama that weekend.

My hope is that this book will serve as an inspiration to people who are interested in spiritual development, for people who have a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or Asperger’s, and for those who know and love them. More importantly, this book shows that Nathan is not defined by either his musicianship or his diagnosis. He is a loveable, highly evolved human being on his own path to Enlightenment—with much to teach all of us.

Introduction

This is a simple book. But at times it is filled with complex ideas. Life is sometimes complex. Whether it is ours or not, life can be quite simple too. When we read a book by someone else, we find a bit of ourselves there. But a lot of things about our life cannot be gathered from books, especially those written by others. After all, experience is different from one person to the next. Even if experiences were not written into what we read, we continue to live them. But I have trouble understanding others’ experiences. In fact, I have trouble understanding a lot.

I have Asperger’s Syndrome. But sometimes it has me. Yet I am not always taken by experience, my disorder, syndrome, difference, or any other name for it—my life. Admittedly, Asperger’s and the rest of my life often get the better of me. So I decided to write a simple book in which I talk about my experience. But I found it to be filled with things not all that simple for others, not even for me to understand.

We live in an ordinary world filled with complex things. Some are interesting, while others are too complex to hold the interest, at least for very long. But I have written a book about my interests, which have held me for some time. And yes, it also interests me greatly that I have written it. In this book, show a process of reconciling what interests me and what does not. From my upbringing to occultism and music, I found my interests spread across many eras. Yet aside from this book and its process, I finally saw the material product was completed. It could be read and held in my hand too. And though I had a book about my interests, the simplest things about the cover and weight of the pages made me happy. But I found a lot of people had problems with what was shared inside it.

This is a spiritual book. Spirituality and books are topics at times not all that simple, especially when one tries to talk about them. For me, books and spirituality are but two facets of my life. Yet I do not enjoy walking around naming facets I later call my life. When I talk about my simple life, it appears what I have done in writing and other things like music have been completed previously. This truth makes my book not all that spiritual. Lost in a great sea of other adults and youths, many influencing factors have pulled me far from all I thought to be sacred and meaningful. Yet I have not lost my persistence to demonstrate my individual humanity. Perhaps one day I will contribute something to its greater whole. But for now, I am but a human pressing against the door of this moment. And it is confusing as all hell.

SECTION 1

The Eyes

Chapter 1

The Autistic

Ascent

Throughout my day, I am entranced by closeness to stimuli. Breaking into my head, cars 50 feet away drive through my ear canal. With puzzle-like connection to my anatomy, smells stab my whole brow. I am connected to my senses. Even visual targets encapsulate my whole view. Sensations of touch can be so uncomfortable, I wear the same clothes for weeks at a time until either my wife or parents say something about it.

I have broken through many of these barriers with something I picked up while watching my grandmother in her garden, tending to her strawberries. As the universe held us, watching her was my first indication of a state beyond the realm of my senses. Suspending me there, I got to watch her. She watched me too. This day I understood my grandma had her own things to do. Seemingly troubled when he would come home to her house I also figured out that something was not okay when my father was away at work. On this very day, I had developed a sense of other people.

In the garden I started to dig a hole. I wanted that hole to go to China so I could bring the Chinese to my grandmother’s farm. I wanted them to play with me. I had been watching moving pictures of Chinese children on Reading Rainbow, a television program we picked up through the antenna. Waving at me through the fuzzy box, I knew they wanted to come over and have fun in the garden. Only three feet deep, my development of the new route was stifled. The pit left me stifled and filled with exhaustion. So, there I rested in it, thinking there must be other ways to reach the other side of the earth. This was another fact I picked up from the antenna. Though I had a little globe I enjoyed spinning, I was too entranced by its motion to gather what it was teaching me about the facts. I felt the coldness of the earth in my garden hole, contemplating my next move. Instead I gave up, resting inside with strawberries.

One day, out with my mother, we visited a camera shop in Kokomo, IN. Things were plain and ordinary, another day at four years of age. I followed mommy, held her hand when we got out of her red two-door Jimmy, the two of us walking through stores. I stood there while she talked to the people. The clerk’s fuzzy brown beard standing out to me, I realized something very different about this trip. This guy wasn’t my Dad. He was a stranger. Mommy felt like a stranger too.

Fixated upon a glass panel separating myself from a camouflage camera lens, a rather large object in the display case. Since the glass stopped me from touching it, I looked left to the main store window. And I saw the sun in the sky. But there was the glass window, staying really still. As light spanned through the pane, I suddenly became consumed by a reaching-quality of the light, feeling a distance from the sun to the earth. I gathered a sense of very immense space between the light and the glass. There was room for both. And I knew this. But the sun’s light took on a far-reaching dimension. I could not know its extent. As it stood so still, I knew the window was unaffected. This was the happiest I had ever felt. Mother alerted me,

It’s time for your Dad to pick you up.

Father worked for an automotive factory. After the house was finished down the lane from grandma, he would come home to his obsessive hobbies, mostly alone and to himself. He was building high-powered rockets in his concrete underground fortress. The lights buzzed and whirred with Dad’s steady hands manipulating tools, his body hunched over the project. At his house, Dad didn’t have people over like mom would. After all, he was bent on something very important. He was about to complete another great project.

After we had moved out of the shanty house where Connie, dad’s new wife lived, we stayed with grandma. And on the farm, Dad started to build another house. Dad was very busy. Having no brothers or sisters, I was alone and free to walk from the house up to the farm making toys out of sticks. There were a few occasions when Dad would emerge from his steadiness in the fortress, playing with a pink baseball. He threw it to me. But I found it hard to catch. Then he taught me how to throw a basketball in the yard. Less interesting was learning to use a computer. Dad showed me how certain numbers make sounds. I loved when Dad showed me things. But I could not place importance in things. Not even my family interested me. Though I belonged to the family, I wasn’t expected around until Dad and Connie had dinnertime or needed to talk about the Bible.

I became most excited on long car rides to school. Father talked at length about scientific principals: nuclear science, computer-programming language, rocket launching techniques, and far-out mathematical assemblages. He could spell out anything in his careful language. Word for word, father could even repeat things I needed to hear again. But frustrating to me were huge pauses between his words. I was enticed by his words even if not always understanding every sentence. I would find myself signaling him back. Sometimes, yet suddenly, he would lash out with bouts of loud yelling. They were intermittent periods, mostly when I did something wrong on a paper at school. Scaring me most was not content, but the volume at which his voice could reach. Shaking the windows and my eardrums, father could yell with a force most otherworldly. If he wasn’t talking about his interests or both of us weren’t quiet, I found myself melting in tears, not knowing the source of the pain. I must have brought too many offenses toward him. There, in the car seat, I had found a great loneliness. I knew no one would help me when I cried.

Different than at mom’s, I had trouble finding pens and pencils at father’s house, spending most of my time alone longing to draw things. But even crayons were on short supply. With cornfields and a power-substation adjacent, our house rested in a crescent of woods. My room had white walls, light blue carpet, and two windows. Other than the occasional air sifting through the ventilation shafts, I couldn’t hear too many noises there. I had a little clock radio. So, I listened to it at night but could not figure out how to change the radio station. I couldn’t figure out how to ask to change it either. While love songs from the 70’s and 80’s would play through the crackling speaker, I was alone and awake, considering the depth of the stars I could see toward the East. Dad said they were like big suns. I would imagine being pulled out into the night-air through a fantastic tunnel running right up the middle of my body taking me there. I saw a separation of myself from my body.

Hallucinatory dreams and fevers plague my memories of this period in my childhood. I recall the terror of not being able to stop screaming at my fathers’ face in the midst of these events. While my eyes were open, I would see white horses and riders bounding around the room. I would vomit onto father’s lap or onto the new carpet. There was a feeling of being shaken from the inside of my body. Sweating, dizziness, colossal headaches, and the inability to get comfortable in my bed accompanied my attempts to get the sleep I knew I needed. Despite my cries being too loud for him, dad’s anger subsided during these bouts. But he still tried to get me to just stop screaming.

Wake up Nathan. You are okay. Just stop screaming.

The day the glove was presented for O.J. to try on during his trial was the last of these terrible hallucinations. As if density were an entity, the fear took the form of rocks smashing down upon me, crushing my body. I was walking on a tightrope, density falling all around me. I could feel the space forming into matter, only to crush the space within my mind, the area where my thoughts and sense of self were being suspended on the tightrope. This weighty matter came from nowhere. Its source from nothingness was something I knew. And I was trapped. A lot of other things were not making sense. I knew at least the illness was invading me from the inside. Having only the sight of this terror available to me so far, the radio blared Magic 95.1. It brought me the sound of the room boiling. There upon me came the house of death.

But I was not prepared to leave. I wanted to play outside. Thoughts were terrible, fast-paced, and vivid. Then, I heard the sound of my father’s voice. I thought, who could grasp my fear but him? My mind-soup was boiling. I had no choice but to watch it happen. Though even his words hurt my whole body, I knew I had discovered a faith and trust in my father. The names for these things coming later, I became consumed by the intensity again and again. But he kept letting me know things, reminding me I was going to be okay. I knew he grasped my fear. More frightening was realizing I sensed his own. I had to survive this. But only part of me did.

Through the following weeks, months, and even years after these fevers, I had a general sense of dread about living at my father’s. Unable to stop the repetition of thoughts surrounding my dreams, preoccupation with them was cognitively split from my intervening choice in the matter; to put my mind there, I had no other choice but to do so. Laying awake with anxiety the dreams may reoccur at any moment, I had no choice but to consider these dreams implied. Yet conclusions eluded me, unable to trust what I believed. Was it something I did wrong to deserve this? I knew I trusted my father could tell me. But I could not trust myself after having caused the illness in the first place. I had concluded these events were my entire fault.

Like a little ticking clock in rhythm, my thoughts were very mechanical early in childhood. Some were plainly unimaginative. Dullness preoccupied my days. I was told stories of my Aunt Sally, my Dad’s sister, fearing the worst was yet to come. She had endured sickness from hay fever at an early age. But Sally suffered permanent brain damage. Her intelligence never developing beyond two years of age, she was confined to a group home on 6th street in my mom’s hometown. In me, something was missing in the way I was cognizing thought. Noticing black spots in my memory, I imagined they were faint phantoms; limbs of perception I was twisting but could not get to act. Even after I had cleared the illness, I was still in a death struggle. But everyone around me believed I was fine. I thought it my duty to believe the same.

There was a definite emotional distance from my thoughts—all of them. With tiredness in my head, I sensed a loss of some thing inside this part of my body I knew was confined there. But I could not quite fully engage the faint trail left over by the thoughts, at least for long enough to see where they went. I was mortified. To end this all, I thought about suffocating myself under pillows. But once my face became tingly, this body of mine came up for air. I knew I needed something else. Body was causing this, I thought. Body needed to go.

The next week, I discovered I could smack two pencils against the wooden chair in my room, making music like I heard on the radio. To my amazement, I could reproduce songs exactly. This made me happy and excited. But not everyone was happy.

"Stop drumming! Stop drumming now!" I could hear from the kitchen. I was afraid while father was yelling all the way downstairs, further away from the side of the house adjacent to the living room. It must have been Friday, I thought. I knew what I did wrong. Being very strict seventh-day Adventists, dad and Connie celebrated the Sabbath on Saturdays without any noise of a TV or radio. Indulgent activities were restricted from Friday eve to Saturday until around seven p.m. Without the noise of much else than Bible recitation happening downstairs, I was sure my musical gesture was heard loud and clear. But there was little room for what I really wanted to communicate to be heard.

Growing up a bit and reading a lot more, I found my literary sources were restricted to biblically oriented literature, or none at all. When I didn’t want to look at the new electronic bible dad got for Connie, I took the opportunity to catch glimpses of strange things in dad’s bathroom: computer magazines and books filled with electrical switches, lights, and circuit boards. In the bathroom, I caught glimpses of the world out there. But I also knew if you smashed the little parts I saw in the pictures, sounds would be created. Looking at dad’s scientific magazines, I wanted to make music.

In accordance with Old Testament law, our family would not stand for such atrocities as eating pigs or certain fish. Ingesting the foul sin of the earth was not our duty as Christians. I had gathered this much. However, I could not understand why water was not allowed. I was supposed to set the table each time: fork here; spoon there, napkin beneath them. Dad and I got the big forks while providing Connie with the salad fork, as her hands were tiny. Dad had told me women are sometimes just physically weaker when doing things. As ours were a little heavier I thought it appropriate to give her the small fork. But I was still the runt of the family, the smallest member. Something did not make sense. After all, I had to act in accordance with the Law of the Bible. Before attacking meals with my big fork, we had to say grace:

God, thank you for this food that we are about to receive. And thank you for all of our blessings. In ‘Jesus-es’ name we pray, Amen.

Glares from Connie let me know it was not good enough. So, sometimes I would try to make it longer. That I had failed at the prayer was at least true for me. I really never felt any connection to the words. I just wanted to eat Connie’s great food. But just after prayer ceased, I watched father shovel food into his mouth at an enormous pace. When I tried to do the same, Connie yelled at me. I was hungry like dad. I wanted to be just like him. And I found a lot of things were stopping me from attaining to his likeness. After all, dad and Connie’s was Monday through Wednesday, until every-other Wednesday, staying with mom every remaining Wednesday until Friday. In accordance with joint custody, Mom and Dad alternated weekends. In these complicated shifts, some rather obvious lifestyle conflicts started arising within me.

At my mother’s I was learning Sumerian mythology and ritual. Dated somewhere around 5000 b.c., I tried to learn their alphabet. But the stone tablets on the Internet were too indecipherable. Making up for my inability to decode the truths, I learned about Aleister Crowley’s Magick practice. Quickening my other three-or-so days lost, I coupled this study with Druidic Candle Magic. Next, I learned to make altars to the gods Marduk and Isthar, particularly how to summon them through charms. I moved on to banishing spirits using crystals, curses, hand-modes, and enjoyed the wonderful world of wands. In no way did these things seem weird or demonic to me; they were fun.

My best rituals happening during the eve, the soft dusk of the afternoon illuminated my altar space. Mom’s house was a place of constant revelation and color around every corner. There, I loved the whole world. But with my juvenile understanding of magick, mere appreciation for the world wasn’t enough: I wanted to control a few things. I had known at Dad’s that barely anything was in my control: Dad was in control. Connie and the Bible were in control. Yet, something about my own life was not yet tamed. And it was my destiny.

The religion at Dad’s had been too dry, strict, and bitter. I laughed at Connie occasionally, especially when she would tell me some story about people crossing the desert. I had never seen a desert. I thought the bible was a fairytale Dad and Connie just took very seriously. I knew it was also responsible for what we could not eat, what sounds I could not make, and what I was not allowed to talk about. So one evening, in preparation for a summoning ritual, I had constructed an altar to Marduk.

Lying in the sixth gate, his house was in the sphere of Jupiter. Instructions indicated I needed to place candles on either side of the altar. Knowing I had to confront the Guardian first, I remembered I missed critical tools for the ritual to do so competently. But my pride to overcome circumstances was starting to flower. Justin Ross had the only Celtic straight sword in the neighborhood. Being too far away to walk and get it, I skipped straight to the gateway of truths set before me: the sixth seal. The room was dark, yet the street light from the Church cattycorner from mom’s illuminated my seal. With much dismay, as I started my ritual, I was met with another snag: I could not figure out what the word ‘either’ had really meant.

I could not tell if this indicated placing both candles on one side, or one candle on the left and one on the right. Knowing I could throw the odds in my favor if I just had three, I found to my horror only two candles were available to me. It was do or die, I thought. I summoned more than a deity—my courage was now present. Before my psychic self-defense techniques kept my personality any safer, paranoia set in quickly. I thought Marduk was going to pull me through the Abyss at the very instance of realizing my own ignorance. Worse, I thought he was going to leave me there. Despite the instructions indicating protective measures were futile when dealing with deities like Marduk, the ritual concluded with me reciting A Most Excellent Charm Against the Hordes of Demons, a banishing ritual. I recited this:

Arise! Arise! Go far away! Go far away!

Be shamed! Be shamed! Flee! Flee!

Turn around, go, arise and go far away! My confidence returned.

Your wickedness may rise to heaven like unto smoke!

Arise and leave my body! I felt goose bumps of nervousness.

From my body, depart in shame!

From my body flee!

Turn away from my body!

Go away from my body! Maybe he wasn’t gone yet, I wondered.

Do not return to my body!

Do not come near my body!

Do not approach my body!

Do not throng around my body! I said it, but didn’t know what throng meant, either.

Be commanded by Shammash the Mighty!

Be commanded by Enki, Lord of All!

Be commanded by Marduk . . . Oh shit, I thought. This cannot be happening.

. . . the Great Magician of the Gods! Great, I’m screwed, I considered.

Be commanded by the God of Fire, your Destroyer! Then I wondered, maybe this got him?

May you be held back from my body!

The next few weeks I was practicing intense meditations in full-lotus postures, and even supplemental hatha yoga to stop my bottom leg from going numb while seated. Ultimately, Justin Ross was no help to me. He thought himself in possession of more superior ritual items, a better workspace, and with his age, a better vocabulary. I was upset. More than that, I was frightened of the paranormal. However, this fear did not deter me from its study. But for the time being, I had put my Necronomicon away, letting it rest alone on the shelf with my other magical books. It stood out to me as a testament to black magic, the back cover reading, . . . the most dangerous Black Book known to the Western world . . . But I also saw it as a great tool for learning new words, especially if that meant having to go to hell for a while. Yet the only hell I found was in my mind. And memories of my beloved childhood started flooding back to my twelve year old body.

In vain, I was struggling to read in several languages. Portuguese on audiotape was my first encounter with a foreign tongue. German, Pali, Sanskrit, and complicated English stifled my encouragement to push onward. Further, at dad’s, what I was reading had to be kept secret. I was in fear my books would be found and taken away. So I became nervous even looking at something in a different language. I thought about the pain of not understanding the words. And the juggling act of needing to speak the words became a more heinous problem, especially if the language was from India, from a book talking about Indian religion. If I wasn’t allowed to practice something involving these sounds at dad’s, I had mom’s house to work things through to the end.

Watching television while we ate, I learned about conspiracy theories of the Illuminati. Talking to her about my interest in the subject, Mom and I thought it a great idea to go to the bookstore. It was a place where lights settled my eyes on the New Age and Occult sections. I scoured the sections, looking for just the right tome. Written by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, my first difficult read became The Illuminitus! Trilogy. Trying to figure out something important about a submarine, I stumbled through it. Kids at school were making fun of me for reading a big book. But I knew William Cooper’s book Behold a Pale Horse was next up on the roster. I learned he was in the Navy, that he had pictures and documents about UFOs, even working with submarines. This must have been the key to the Trilogy, I thought.

Cooper’s book gripped my deepest speculations about the existence of UFOs. A topic which dad actually knew a lot about, I drew from his secret library in the basement. This fueled my urges of getting to the bottom of this ever-fainting trail. Employing my Indian meditation and Buddhist doctrines, I was trying with difficulty to grasp the source of the implications of the extraterrestrials. I thought I could be one of them. And by now, I had arguments to support my case: I wasn’t really saying the right things all the time. When I looked in the mirror, I saw someone I did not recognize. Lastly, I did not think myself to have come from my parents: I disliked the religion at dad’s, wanted to eat ham sandwiches, and was beginning to play music. I must have been an alien to my parents, I thought.

Collecting large amounts of antiques, mom filled all corners of her house with beautiful things. The kitchen was consumed by fiesta-ware and lost forms of Christmas lights.

Bubble lights, she would say.

All year round, lights of every type buzzed, whirred, and twinkled the whole kitchen as we ate. The colors bounced off the beautiful china plates, the sewing machine table vibrating to the stereo. We loved Prince, Kriss-Kross, and Gloria Estafan, Genesis, and especially Michael Jackson. Finding myself animated, Chick Corea’s record Leprechaun had sent me dancing through the living room onto her grandmother’s old rug. It provided just enough extra padding for my heels. But sooner than I knew, Mom and I were head-banging to White Zombie, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. When it was sunny, I would ride my bike around the block over and over again, consumed by the utter happiness of being in town. But musical instruments replaced the bike. And I was becoming exceptional with them—and quickly.

Granted a home to live in, mother’s family obsessively checked on things via telephone almost daily. It was a necessary device to keep her around to take care of my grandmother and me after the divorce. Dad told me she had wanted to take me to Seattle after the divorce. But our Midwest upbringing kept her tied down to many unspoken obligations. The Kunkles had a firm grip on my mother.

Let’s go shopping, I said to Grandma Kunkle.

Grandma Kunkle’s house was also filled with antiques. She liked things old, even keeping a cookie dated from the 50’s in a small tin. Upon returning to her farmhouse after school, I would reveal the cookie each day. I would not grab the cookie, but would wonder what it tasted like before I closed the lid. Walking to the big rug of the back room, I looked upon the train tracks at the bottom of the field. Waiting for mom to pick me up, I would listen to the trains in the far off distance, laying alone on the rug for hours until she arrived. Sometimes I would sit in the back room with my grandma Kunkle while she watched television, usually soap-operas and the news at 5. When the news came on, I knew mom was close.

Settling to the company of Joe, a martial arts master, mom confided that she was feeling a lot happier after the divorce. I was happy about Joe, too. We used to spar in the backyard or in the living room. A 5th degree black belt in Karate, his dojo was in Kokomo, the town where dad worked. We would go there on the weekends sometimes, watching Joe conduct some classes. An expert in weapons forms, empty-hand katas, and sparring, he traveled to Fiji to compete with the other masters of the world. Yet as much as I loved Joe or enjoyed the fun times we had together, I hated my parents for divorcing each other. Each day, it seemed I was in a different place. I wanted them together. I wanted one home, one set of parents. I wanted one life, instead of many. I discovered I was not the only one who wanted a singular life; mom wanted that too. But her time was strained between going to work at Modern Graphics, helping Grandma Kunkle, and fulfilling her parental obligations to me.

As I grew into my teen years, I became immersed in the Internet. I was playing online-role-playing games, connecting to people around the world, using email, calling people around the United States, and even checking out pornography. I found the Internet to be the most awesome thing ever conceived. However, discovering more about humanity than what I wanted, I started over again, reconnecting with my spiritual practices that had once seemed religious. And the Internet was not helping the situation of rekindling my initial loves. I was doing appearances with an atheist radio show out of New York. Reginald Finley, the Black Atheist as he called himself, had opened a channel to Mom’s house via the cordless phone. I had dug my hole to China.

While many peers at school were into hacking and mIRC, I opened forums with university professors around the country. And at this time, Internet anonymity was a hit or miss: we knew one another, but not really. It was a comfortable medium for me to use in expressing my interests. But the days grew long and tenuous, the relationship with mother clearly straining. My room became cold. And I could sense the odd repositioning of Mom’s new computer room as it was happening, taking the place of my old one.

The windows in my space were more than one hundred years old. The wind traveling through reminded me of a great distance. I again looked to the Internet, contributing to occult and conspiracy theory forums. It was then I developed a notion about my Grandpa Fox, a man I had never met. I thought the Free Masons murdered him.

Grandpa and Grandma Fox: Conspiracy and Reality Theory

Grandpa Bernard Fox was a stout blonde man, enormously broad upper body, and also a 32nd degree Mason. What else I had known of him was very little, other than data gathered from family reunions.

"His waist was 28 inches, yet his chest spanned 50—at least," Dad said.

Several years before I was born, he had died in a sudden car accident. Tales of his feats of strength resonate in the remaining Fox males, the survivors of our lineage. Pictures of him gave a reasonable expectation as to what my father should look like if he got on the treadmill, or did 200 pull-ups a day. But Grandpa didn’t look like an ordinary man, my father, or me. He was our seed, our maxim. And he had passed, leaving me with questions surrounding his death. And in the head of a teenage occultist and conspiracy theorist, I confronted the issue with the tools at my disposal: utter paranoia.

Regarding the Masons, I had known this much: they existed, they persisted, and some were members of the Illuminati. In my mind, the triangle was a very clear indicator