The theonom's quiet chant filled the air as thoroughly as the smoke, and like the smoke wormed its way inexorably inwards. Tácharan's eyes were closed, but he knew that if he opened them he would see little. The mithraeum would be dark save for the dull glow of the coals that were used to burn the herbs. He had been there only twice before, once for his initial induction into the Alae Draconis, and once for his initiation into the Mysteriorum Arche... the Mystery of the Principle. This was to be his initiation into the Mysteriorum Anima, the Mystery of Soul.
His state of detachment deepened as he breathed in the prescribed fashion. The breathing pattern was every bit as much a part of the ritual as the intoxicating smoke he inhaled and exhaled in this sacred space. The rhythm of the chant drew him on, not outwards, but inwards. Slowly his mind opened itself up. The looking-glass reflection that was his mind became permeable and through it he slipped.
The theonom was there with him in the attic, a mental construct surely, but a perfect replica of the place that had captured his imagination within his familial home during his earliest years. The dust of ages lay heavily upon the space as forgotten portraits and the boxed-up dreams of his ancestors moldered away. Here he had explored, a home away from home, a place that was his own where he would not be teased or tormented or shamed for what he saw, or thought he saw. Here he had dined with his great grandparents, learned stories of his father's twin who didn't survive five years, and uncovered the oldest heraldry of his family line.
The cough startled him. Tácharan turned in the attic inside his mind and found a figure sitting in a rocking chair. Who else could be here? he wondered and the words echoed in the space. When in one's own mind, one's thoughts are made manifest.
I am his thoughts echoed aloud as the figure leaned forward in the rocking chair, his face only now illuminated. The face was so familiar, but so foreign. It was his father's face, but not his father's face. It was his own face, but not his own face. It was a face he might wear some day. It was a face that might lead a family some day. The pang of grief at his father's death resonated in the space as did the anger at the distance that had always been between them. Tácharan... Horace had never lived up to his father's expectations. Horace had seen things. Horace had lived in dreams. Horace had read too much. Horace had not been grounded in the real world. Horace had been a disappointment.
The thoughts became bats, screeching through the space, filling the air with chaos until as one the figure in the walking chair and Tácharan threw their hands over their ears, covered their face(s), and cried out for it to stop. And then there was silence. The two, Tácharan now and as he would be (could never be), looked up in that now quiet space and stared at each other. There is much to learn and much to see. The thoughts echoed in the space and it was no longer clear which of them it had come from. Let us look through this place together and see what vistas remain to be uncovered here.
And it was so.
Tácharan awoke hours later. The journey into his soul itself had been a long one, seemingly far longer than the mere hours that had passed in the mundane world, the real world, but not the true world. Tácharan and his daimon, the manifestation of his psyche, had explored together, just as Tácharan had done in the real attic and glimpsed many things, learned many things.
Tácharan's Awakening had been a journey to Beyond and this experience had been as well. Beyond the framework of this real world to the true world. Not outwards though, exploring all things, but a deeply personal journey to Beyond to see who and what he truly was.
For hours after, Tácharan and the theonom spoke of the journey, on what had been seen and experienced. This was the Mysteriorum Anima, the Mystery of Soul. Tácharan's understanding deepened as the truth behind the second of the Five Mysteries were laid bare. The experience was destructive, shattering, as that of a chick emerging from an egg. And it was every bit as liberating.
